Kindness

 

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 gaze at 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.

--Naomi Shihab Nye

[Our granddaughter Ella and her friend Hudson].

One Boy Told Me

 

Music lives inside my legs.

It’s coming out when I talk.

I’m going to send my valentines

to people you don’t even know.

Oatmeal cookies make my throat gallop.

Grown-ups keep their feet on the ground

when they swing. I hate that.

Look at those 2 o’s with a smash in the middle—

that spells good-bye.

Don’t ever say “purpose” again,

let’s throw the word out.

Don’t talk big to me.

I’m carrying my box of faces.

If I want to change faces I will.

Yesterday faded

but tomorrow’s in boldface.

When I grow up my old names

will live in the house

where we live now.

I’ll come and visit them.

Only one of my eyes is tired.

The other eye and my body aren’t.

Is it true all metal was liquid first?

Does that mean if we bought our car earlier

they could have served it

in a cup?

There’s a stopper in my arm

that’s not going to let me grow any bigger.

I’ll be like this always, small.

And I will be deep water too.

Wait. Just wait. How deep is the river?

Would it cover the tallest man with his hands in the air?

Your head is a souvenir.

When you were in New York I could see you

in real life walking in my mind.

I’ll invite a bee to live in your shoe.

What if you found your shoe

full of honey?

What if the clock said 6:92

instead of 6:30? Would you be scared?

My tongue is the car wash

for the spoon.

Can noodles swim?

My toes are dictionaries.

Do you need any words?

From now on I’ll only drink white milk

on January 26.

What does minus mean?

I never want to minus you.

Just think—no one has ever seen

inside this peanut before!

It is hard being a person.

I do and don’t love you—

isn't that happiness?

--Naomi Shihab Nye

[A favorite photo of our grandson, Killian David].

Breakage

 

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

--Mary Oliver

[Collecting shells on Honeymoon Island with our granddaughter Ella Lynn].

For Absence

 

May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence,
that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo.
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere,
where the presences that have left you dwell.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the sore well of grief turn into a seamless flow of presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from.
May you have the courage to speak for the excluded ones.
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words or false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one.
May your longing inhabit its dreams within the Great Belonging.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

January 1, 1956 - January 4, 2008

[To remember and honor John O'Donohue on the 15th anniversary of his passing .]

Clonmacnoise Monastery, County Offaly, Ireland.

The Growing Edge

 All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; 

all around us life is dying and life is being born. 

The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work 

in the darkness of the earth against a time when 

there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. 

Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath 

from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try 

when all else has failed, the upward reach of life 

when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. 

This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, 

the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint 

and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence 

when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. 

The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — 

this is the growing edge incarnate. 

Look well to the growing edge!

—Howard Thurman

[Photo of Ella (2) meeting her baby sister, Harper Grace, our youngest grandchild.]

Blessing for the Longest Night

 

All throughout these months,

as the shadows

have lengthened,

this blessing has been

gathering itself,

making ready,

preparing for

this night.

It has practiced

walking in the dark,

traveling with

its eyes closed,

feeling its way

by memory,

by touch,

by the pull of the moon

even as it wanes.

So believe me

when I tell you

this blessing will

reach you,

even if you

have not light enough

to read it;

it will find you,

even though you cannot

see it coming.

You will know

the moment of its

arriving

by your release

of the breath

you have held

so long;

a loosening

of the clenching

in your hands,

of the clutch

around your heart;

a thinning

of the darkness

that had drawn itself

around you.

This blessing

does not mean

to take the night away,

but it knows

its hidden roads,

knows the resting spots

along the path,

knows what it means

to travel

in the company

of a friend.

So when

this blessing comes,

take its hand.

Get up.

Set out on the road

you cannot see.

This is the night

when you can trust

that any direction

you go,

you will be walking

toward the dawn.

—Jan Richardson

The Layers

 

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

--Stanley Kunitz

[Summer of 1978]