Kindness
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
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