Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
(see, kiddos, I copied the poem AND the poet into the post!)
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 every where
like a shadow or a friend.
(So I wanted to add a little introduction paragraph...I actually wrote this after I drafted my post)
I often hear the phrase "oh, she's so nice," or "he's too nice," or "be nice." I hate this word because to me, it implies shallow, cold, "good" behaviors that someone could learn out of a book about manners. I think that the word
kindness carries so much more weight. Naomi Shihab Nye's poem
Before You Know Kindness I think really defines what the word kindness means--that it comes from a place of connecting with humanity, from a place of true empathy, from a place of brokenness.
(First, an OBSERVATION/INFERENCE paragraph--or two)
One of the images that startles me every time I read this poem is that of everything dissolving. In the first stanza, she seems to be saying that the things people hold most dear in life can--and will--dissolve. That we will experience loss in this world, no matter how hard we "counted and carefully saved." I think that line means that we cannot plan for everything and no matter how much we try to do things exactly right, there will be moments in life where our efforts will be of no use.
She includes an image of seeing a man dead on the side of the road--that we must see him as a person before we can understand kindness; that we must truly break over his death. In the following stanza, she uses a number of verbs to show that one must understand true sorrow in order to get to a place of true kindness: know it, wake up with it, speak to it. Those words mean that one must live in a place of hurt. The last stanza brings it together, because once someone understands suffering, then they know the secret of what really matters: "It is I you have been looking for," not the grade or image or money.
(Then, an INTERPRETATION paragraph)
After reading this poem a number of times, I've come to the conclusion that the title of this poem implies that before we really know what kindness is, something else must happen--that life experience that causes someone to be kind. Someone can be taught to be nice: to share, to say please and thank you. But kindness comes out of relating to the rest of the humans in the world who understand the most basic part of the human experience: suffering.
To live in a place of hurt the way Naomi Shihab Nye suggests sounds awful--like something to avoid. But my old pastor used to talk quite a bit about how suffering is part of what makes us human. Those who suffer connect to a thread that every other person who has ever hurt has felt. When one suffers, he or she realizes what actually matters and is able to let go of the shallow things they used to desire. And, that when we understand suffering and join in with the throngs of humanity, we learn that we sought love and acceptance through the very wrong things.
(Finally, an EXTENSION paragraph)
There are so many ways to apply this and I think I will speak directly to my students. I think it is important to think of the ways that you have been hurt. Gather up those feelings that you have survived through. What was it that you wanted most while you were hurting? Now, look around you and try to discover who it is that might be suffering. Ask yourself what true kindness looks like. I think. I think that true kindness transcends 8th grade drama. True kindness steps outside of social circles. True kindness sees the humanity in one another and treats one another accordingly. And, when I glimpse moments of that among adolescents I truly have hope that maybe one day we will all see each other as people with hearts and stories and brokenness, rather than the other labels I watch students place on each other every day. That is my hope.
