Poem

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 the ride thinking the bus will never stop and 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 pancho lies dead by the side of the road, you must see how
this could be you, how too, he  was someone
Who journeyed  through the night
With plans
And  the simple breathe 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 til 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 send you into the day
To mail the 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

-naoimi shihab nye