This week’s choice is “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye and I chose it for all my friends and family who sent me messages and thoughts on the anniversary of Nicola’s death.
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.
- Naomi Shihab Nye (1952—)
Poem 405. 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 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.
In this poem, Naomi Shihab Nye suggests that we can only comprehend kindness when we have suffered and sorrowed.
The first stanza suggests that we cannot fully appreciate kindness until we have lost something or someone; that only in the despair of loss can we truly learn what it means to be kind and what it is worth. Nye captures the feeling of loss beautifully in the phrase “feel the future dissolve in a moment/like salt in a weakened broth”—the moment when all our hopes and dreams fade and become as insubstantial as seasoning in our food. The metaphor works another way too, since also the substance of the salt is gone, we still can taste it, just as we remember our lost future.
She says that we must lose everything that we have carefully husbanded to grasp the emptiness of daily life without kindness—like enduring an interminable bus ride while those around you enjoy the taste of their lives and the view from the window.
We cannot comprehend the full value of kindness until we can empathise with others who have lost more than us—even their lives—and we can see how any of us might be struck down as we go about our days and make our plans, relying on “the simple breath that kept him alive.”
We must realise that kindness in all its depth balances sorrow—without understanding one, we cannot make sense of the other. Nye imagines us working with our sorrow, bringing the threads together into a cloth so that we can assess its size.
At that point, we have understood our sorrow and can likewise grasp the nature of kindness and how it can bring solace through kindness shown to others as they are kind to us, and then it “goes with you everywhere/like a shadow or a friend.”
There is a performance of the poem by Naomi Sihab Nye herself on the 1440 Multiversity YouTube channel. I found this poem in the book Tell Me the Truth About Life: A National Poetry Day Anthology, and it really seems to express the feelings of loss and loneliness and the vital role the kindness of others plays at these times. For all those who sent comforting messages and thoughts this week, it would be impossible to thank you enough, but I have chosen this poem in your honour.