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.
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?
Danusha Laméris: Omens
I wish I could make sense
of the child’s empty bed,
the bullet hole though my brother’s heart.
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.
Danusha Laméris: Bonfire Opera
In those days, there was a woman in our circle
who was known, not only for her beauty,
but for taking off all her clothes and singing opera.
And sure enough…
Danusha Laméris: Small Kindnesses
For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now.
