Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
You must lose things,
Feel the future dissolve in a moment
Like salt in weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
What you counted and carefully saved.
All this must go before you know
How desolate the landscape can be
Between the regions of kindness

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 until your voice
Catches the thread of all sorrows
And you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is kindness that makes sense anymore,
Only kindness that ties our 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, like a friend.

Naomi Shehab Nye