Before You Know Kindness

One thing I have always loved about my husband, Michael, is his appreciation of beautiful poetry. We began exchanging poems literally within hours of meeting each other, and in that first year there was a flurry of Rilke and Rumi and Hafiz and cummings.

We have been together for almost 7 years, and we send fewer poems now, but occasionally I find one in my inbox, or I send one to him. As I was sorting through some old emails, I found this one, "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye. Michael sent it to me over a year ago. As I read it now, it resonates with me in a way it couldn't have back then.

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 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.

I have to say, even having known sorrow, I am still so forgetful of kindness at times! I still grasp after my own comfort and security. At times I find myself angry. And then, something startles me awake, and I have to laugh. Security? This is all so fleeting. Anger? Ah, yes, sometimes I suffer that way. Sometimes I forget that I always have the choice to soften my heart.

Thich Naht Hanh recommends a meditation when you are angry with someone you love:

I close my eyes and look deeply.
Three hundred years from now
Where will you be and where shall I be?
How wonderful, you are still alive!
I am so happy!
How could I be angry with you?
Both of us have to die someday
and while we are still alive and together
it is foolish to be angry at each other.

May kindness go with us everywhere, like a shadow or a friend.