A Sabbath Poem (Nye)

KINDNESS
~ by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
You must lose things,
Feel the future dissolve in a moment
Like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
What you counted and carefully saved,
All this must go so you know
How desolate the landscape can be
Between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
Thinking the bus will never stop,
The passengers eating maize and chicken
Will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
You must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
Lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
How he too was someone
Who journeyed through the night with plans
And the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
Catches the thread of all sorrows
And you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
Only kindness that ties your shoes
And sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
And then goes with you everywhere
Like a shadow or a friend.

(from The Words Under the Words:
Selected Poems, Eight Mountain Press, 1995)

Comments

[Bonnie Dwyer]

Thank you for this exquisite poem. Reading it felt like a quiet cry with a dear friend, the tears wiped away by their shared monogramed white Irish linen handkerchief.

[Elisa]

Thanks for this Samir. I think the person who wrote 'Kindness' must have travelled to Africa or lived here, because when I read the line 'The passengers eating maize and chicken, Will stare out the window forever' it brings to mind my thoughts as I drive on the roads here in Nairobi, looking at people in the small minivans taking them to work, home to the slums where they live, dangerously and carelessly weaving in and out of traffic. While I sit in my car, with the entire car to myself, comfortably removed from them. I wonder what they must be thinking, looking back at me. And of course, I imagine the worst and am ashamed of myself. I feel that because they have less, they are more honest and more worthy. Of what, I'm not sure. I don't know if I'm making sense, but this poem articulated thoughts that I've had/have often. The image of faces peering out of battered buses and vans, tired and mostly just staring vacantly.