Robert Service: Compassion
For God knows it is good to give;
We may not have so long to live,
So if we can,
Let’s do each day a kindly deed,
And stretch a hand to those in need,
Bird, beast or man.
Tony Gloeggler: World of Wonders
He loves watching cars glide by,
sliding his special pass in the slot
to pay, sitting by a window, feeling
the drum and hum beneath his feet.
George Drew: Shared Space
My Uncle Frank was a weird bird, everybody who knew him
knew it and kept space between him and themselves,
space he filled by talking to himself as he hustled along Main Street
Video: “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye
In this short animated video, Naomi Shihab Nye reads her famous poem “Kindness.”
Patricia A. Nugent: One Nation, Under Rage, Divisible
Anger can cause us to neglect gratitude, kindness, and integrity. As we mature as individuals and a nation, it’s our responsibility to redirect anger in ways that lift us and others up, to channel the energy into a higher vibration. To channel the passion of rage into love.
Max Ehrmann: Desiderata
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Michael Simms: Oh Darlin’
The intimacy
Of strangers is luminous, the way
We wish well for the man who lost
His car keys, the woman coming in
Out of the rain, the girl who missed
Her bus, the boy who stutters.
Lauren Camp: Leather World, This Bird, This Sky
I came here from temporary
and perpetual rages—the whole sky
of wind. Secret birds
take the ruin of garden.
Michael Simms: Ten things I should have figured out before now
Love is complicated. Courtesy is simple. Start with courtesy.
Carolyn Gregory: Listening
Compassion unfolds her bright blue
wings and shelters us.
Buddha Shakyamuni: Well-Spoken
A statement endowed with five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken; it is blameless and not faulted by knowledgeable people. Which five?
Chris Hedges: The Miracle of Kindness
Take a brief journey through the eyes of American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges to Jerusalem, Gaza, and Iraq, and discover the sacred bonds that make us human.
Michael Simms: Scarf
The old man and the blonde woman smiled and waved at me, and I felt a surge of gratitude to be among such decent people in this lovely city in a dark time when the light of kindness seems so rare.
Michael Simms: Dogsbody to the Muse
Sometimes it’s painful to watch a group of poets trying to work a room as if they were politicians. The AWP conference, as the wag put it, is comprised of 15,000 introverts pretending to be extroverts.
