Sunday, October 2, 2011

Hello fellow Bluebell readers!

Here we are in the wonderful month of October. Did you know that October 2 (yesterday) is the International Day of Non Violence? I did not know that until after I had selected and been enjoying reading today's author in our poetry review but I was nonetheless stunned by the synchronicity of it.

For today's reading is entitled "Kindness" and it is coming to us from the amazing writer Naomi Shihab Nyea.

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.
—Naomi Shihab Nye


Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother.



During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas. Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit. Here is what she said about herself and her creative process of writing:

I have always loved the gaps, the spaces between things, as much as the things. I love staring, pondering, mulling, puttering. I love the times when someone or something is late—there’s that rich possibility of noticing more, in the meantime…Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.”

The above poem is from her book "Words Under Words." .She also has a new book,
What Have You Lost?



It can be purchased here, http://www.amazon.com/What-Have-Lost-Naomi-Shihab/dp/0380733072/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317616906&sr=1-1
For me personally, I love her international perspective. At the end of the day we all yearn for the same things, no matter who we are or where we live. She gets that and I really get her writing!

I hope you enjoy this weeks poet as much as I did. And I have a challenge for myself and you, lets go out today and practice a deliberate moment of kindness. Be kind to one another. It really is that simple.
All the best and see you soon!

Indie

2 comments:

Maxwell Mead Williams Robinson Barry said...

love this,

perfect job, Indie.

:)

Trisha said...

I didn't know it was International Non-Violence Day. Damn! That's totally my kind of day. I'd be a non-violent protester for sure.