When I was putting in my favorite attibutes, thought about a Post of a Poem that Phil put on the Board, long time ago, I saved it, and thought you all might enjoy.... ...............................................................
Kindness
Poet Naomi Shihab Nye in her poem "Kindness" writes:
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 ...
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.
"LOVE" devoid of self-gratification, is in essence, the will, to the greatest good...of another
I dunno it that'd work for me. I'd probably feel what Jackson Browne ( a member of our club) wrote after his wife killed herself.
I'm going to rent myself a house In the shade of the freeway Gonna pack my lunch in the morning And go to work each day And when the evening rolls around I'll go on home and lay my body down And when the morning light comes streaming in I'll get up and do it again Amen. Say it again Amen.
I want to know what became of the changes We waited for love to bring Were they only the fitful dreams Of some greater awakening? I've been aware of the time going by They say in the end it's the wink of an eye When the morning light comes streaming in You'll get up and do it again Amen.
Caught between the longing for love And the struggle for the legal tender Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring And the junk man pounds his fender. Where the veterans dream of the fight Fast asleep at the traffic light And the children solemnly wait For the ice cream vendor Out into the cool of the evening Strolls the Pretender He knows that all his hopes and dreams Begin and end there
Ah the laughter of the lovers As they run through the night Leaving nothing for the others But to choose off and fight And tear at the world with all their might While the ships bearing their dreams Sail out of sight
I'm gonna find myself a girl Who can show me what laughter means And we'll fill in the missing colors In each other's paint-by-number dreams And then we'll put our dark glasses on And we'll make love until our strength is gone And when the morning light comes streaming in We'll get up and do it again Get it up again
I'm gonna be a happy idiot And struggle for the legal tender Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy where true love could have been a contender Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender. Who started out so young and strong Only to surrender.
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Saturday 24th of July 2010 01:34:13 PM
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Saturday 24th of July 2010 01:35:02 PM
Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sun on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die.
