Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
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- 2.Poetry Thursday!
- 3.Poetry almost Thursday, Thanksgiving Edition
- 4.The first day of December, Poetry Thursday
- 5.Boy At the Window — Poetry Thursday
- 6.A Poem About Evolution — Poetry Thursday
- 7.Like Snow – Poetry Thursday
- 8.The Peace of Wild Things – Poetry Thursday
- 9.Rain – Poetry Thursday
- 10.The Real Work – Poetry Thursday
- 11.To The River – Poetry Thursday
- 12.A Beautiful Poem About Internal Darkness
- 13.Poetry Thursday – Genius
- 14.Poetry Thursday – Soon This Space Will Be Too Small
- 15.A Poem from Stephen Harrod Buhner
- 16.To Bless the Space Between Us – Poetry Thursday!
- 17.Poetry Thursday – A Quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- 18.Poetry Thursday – Sarah Cleghorn
- 19.On a Tree Fallen Across the Road by Robert Frost
- 20.A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
- 21.My Will by Lorna Goodison
- 22.Going Away – A Poem from the Quechua
- 23.Blessing by John O’Donohue
- 24.The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins
- 25.Wild Geese by Wendell Berry
- 26.Silence of the Fall by Louisa Paulin
- 27.Poetry Thursday – Karl Ove Knausgaard
- 28.Snow Day by Billy Collins – Poetry Thursday
- 29.Winter Solstice by Jodi Aliesan – Poetry Thursday
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- 31.Lost by David Wagoner
- 32.Fiddling with the Idiot by Hafiz
- 33.The Sixth of January by David Budbill
- 34.Two Tramps in Mud Time by Robert Frost
- 35.What We Need is Here by Wendell Berry
- 36.Keep Moving Forward by Mitchell Greenwood
- 37.When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver
- 38.Praying by Mary Oliver
- 39.Thirst by Mary Oliver
- 40.Blueberries by Mary Oliver
- 41.The Sycamore by Wendell Berry
- 42.Jealous Hearing Someone Laugh by Hafiz
- 43.Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich
- 44.Egg by C.G. Hanzlicek
- 45.The Broken Gourd by Wendell Berry
- 46.Another Spring by Kenneth Rexroth
- 47.Poetry Thursday – the Visionary Paintings of Paul Laffoley
- 48.Two Poems by Mary Oliver
- 49.What If? A poem by Ganga White
- 50.See No Evil by Billy Collins
- 51.We Who Prayed and Wept by Wendell Berry
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- 56.The First by Wendell Berry
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- 58.Riding Lesson by Henry Taylor
- 59.Messenger by Mary Oliver
- 60.In Rain by Wendell Berry
- 61.A Poetry Thursday with Rumi
- 62.Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
- 63.Sometimes by David Whyte
- 64.Having it Out with Melancholy by Jane Kenyon
- 65.After an Illness, Walking the Dog by Jane Kenyon
- 66.Admit Something by Hafiz
- 67.Turtle Mountain Reservation by Louise Erdrich
- 68.The Layers by Stanley Kunitz
- 69.Martian Rose by Stuart Atkinson
- 70.To The Unseeable Animal by Wendell Berry
- 71.Open the Door or Die by Hafiz
- 72.Paradox of Noise by Gunilla Norris
- 73.Out of the Mouth of a Thousand Birds by Hafiz
- 74.An Excerpt by William Shakespear
- 75.School Prayer by Diane Ackerman
- 76.The Lanyard by Billy Collins
- 77.In the Next Galaxy by Ruth Stone
- 78.The Apple Tree by Wendell Berry
- 79.At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border by William E. Stafford
- 80.Mighty Pawns by Major Jackson
- 81.Letter to Brooks: Spring Garden by Major Jackson
Kindness
Poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952
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.