|
10 May 2021 Dear Friends & Readers, I hope you are well and finding ways to embody your life in ways that are nourishing. For me, that means I am traveling to Maine, to open my cottage for the season. If you look closely, you can see the island beginning to emerge on edge the horizon. Monhegan come again…. gathering (in grace) notes will not meet this evening, but we will resume our circle on May 24. Until then, I leave you with a poem & a prompt. Words that speak to me of Monhegan and of the many ways the island has been my kindness. moments bitter as well sweet. It is where l always return, for the island always has something to teach me… Tell me, how do you know kindness? ~ xo sew Kindness 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 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.
|
