In a world built on the systemic values of prioritizing money and dominance over everything else, which means: war over peace, death over life, the threat or reality of extinction over planetary health, extreme wealth and resource hoarding over communal wellness and the inevitable downstream of collective trauma — I reach for poetry that reminds me how individuals build bridges every day that step through fear into connection, that invite us to open our hearts and to listen.
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…
