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| Taken last night by my Beloved's friend on Oregon coast |
"Kindness"
by 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 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.
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Thanking everyone for their kind thoughts and prayers. These are the only things holding me up in this time.
Also, as my bro, Sanjay, says - my drum is my life raft. I played for the community on Shivaratri night for 4 hours. Full power and emotion offered.
O God, please help me. O Goddess, please help me....over and over, all day and night.
Still weeping continuously within and without.
She only....saw me and knew me to the depth of my soul. She only....loved me unconditionally in this life. Now I am ruined, fully in the realm of, and dependent on, divine grace.
She is everywhere, but my hand longs for her touch. I can only touch the drum that she too played on.
How can I make this passage?
