Tweetspeak Poetry

Poetry Prompt: Small Kindnesses

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small-kindnesses-poetry-promptThere are 6, 987, 000, 000 people in this world and with each person, an opportunity to extend small kindnesses.

Kindness

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 everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

— Naomi Shihab Nye

Try It: Small Kindnesses

Write a poem on the topic of “small kindnesses”—either a kindness you extended, or a kindness someone (or something) extended to you, or a kindness you wish would be extended.

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Photo by S G, Creative Commons via Flickr.

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How to Write a Poem 283 high How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.

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Heather Eure
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Comments

  2. Donna Falcone says

    There will always be a deeper sorrow –
    One more spade full of soil, cast off
    One more insult to frail form and battered hearts
    One more bracing against, and
    One more inch of space required.

    There will always be a higher call –
    One more tender seed, sown
    One more forehead kiss and quiet wink
    One more cup of herbal chai, and
    One more open room where we let mysteries unfold
    together.

    Reply

  6. Monica Sharman says

    Small Kindnesses

    There are many kinds
    and none are truly random,
    a mathematician might say.
    They’re all calculated, multi-variable
    functions of the recipient. Small,
    even infinitesimal acts, when we integrate
    over the interval from zero
    to infinity, give us the whole,
    filling in the area under the curve.

    Reply

  7. Rick Maxson says

    At the Tram Platform

    We pass each day, under the tram platform—
    they remain in their embrace, a moment,
    and the moments around the small space.

    Passing by, a woman sees the hand lifting, not yet
    to his face, but for this she is in her own mind.
    To capture life, we steal its motion and hide it
    in stone and bronze. We imagine what is lost,
    what is there a step before, a step after the touch,
    beyond that, we are the exhibit and the observer.

    You passersby will never know that he was kind,
    that her touch had been the first for years
    and he shook with excitement, laughed
    with her as the artist insisted he concentrate.
    I cannot tell you here the stagnant days
    that dropped away as she followed instruction
    and slipped the ring in her coat, how easy it was
    to feel like something precious in his arms.

    We will never know beyond mere words or thought or
    form how they both went home with the other’s scent
    on their clothing, for him a pleasant torture, for her
    a legitimate reason to keep what was not hers, how
    they lay awake those nights dreaming beyond that touch.

    We will pass each day, under the tram platform,
    and toss our hopes at them, like pennies in a fountain,
    or write poems about what could have been. Some
    will pass by silently, heads down, never seeing
    the scattered copper dreams, eyes wide open in the sun.

    Reply

  8. Prasanta says

    Love this prompt and the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye; beautiful! Thank you, Heather.

    Small Things

    He smiles through wrinkles
    She’s in the nursing home now
    A tear slides down his cheek
    He brushes it away
    She doesn’t see

    He pushes the wheelchair
    Slowly up the ramp he had built
    So she could visit her home
    And he’s never in his home anymore
    Because he’s with her in that other home

    Her white veil replaced now
    With a crown of silver
    And she is beautiful, beaming
    Because she is loved—
    And not alone

    Did she say “I can’t do this alone”
    Or did he simply “do”
    She let go – of his hand and sat in the chair
    Trusted someone else to do her walking
    He placed his hands on the wheelchair-
    And let go of himself

    I only know about a ramp, a tear and days
    One day spilling into the next
    Leading to this day,
    With a wheelchair, and a tear

    I needed to know
    To see that tear
    To be reminded of
    Small kindnesses
    That probably
    Were very many kindnesses
    That built that ramp
    That held that hand
    That led to a tear

    And I saw the smile
    Reach across the room
    And did you happen to see the hand
    That opened the door
    Letting in a light of hope
    And did you catch the hug that emptied
    The sadness of the day
    I happened to read the note left behind
    Words curing a heart

    I saw ramps being built
    Around us today
    Did you happen to see?

    Reply

  9. Katie says

    Hi all:)
    Wow, have been inspired again by everyone’s shares, thank you!
    I’m still in acrostic mode:

    Sharing
    Memories
    Around the table
    Letting
    Love
    Kindle
    In our hearts
    Now
    Deeper
    Nearer
    Ever
    Softer
    Steadier
    Endless
    Stream of hope

    This was inspired by the moments sharing memories of my father-in-law with his children, grands, great-grands, and family. What a wonderful man and a wonderful life! We miss you Poppa.

    Reply

  10. LINDA REID says

    I REALLY LIKE ALL THE POEMS ON HERE ABOUT KINDNESS. WE NEED KINDNESS
    IN OUR WORLD SO MUCH TODAY.

    I LOVE THE KINDNESS OF A BEAUTIFUL DAY LIKE TODAY.
    THE SKY SO CLEAR, THE SUN SO BRIGHT
    SHINING LIKE IT NEVER DID BEFORE.

    I LOVE THE KINDNESS THAT BROUGHT THE SURPRISE OF TODAY-
    THOUGH VERY COLD AND GLOOMY YESTERDAY
    THE KINDNESS OF THE WARMTH OF THE SUN AND THE BEAUTY
    OF THE CLEAR BLUE SKY
    LIFTED MY SPIRITS AND LET THEM FLY.

    FLY TO HOPE AGAIN, TO KNOW THERE WILL BE A SUNRISE
    A SUNSET TO LOOK FORWARD TO.
    THERE WILL BE BIRDS SINGING IN THE TREES EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE BARE
    THERE WILL BE THESE SIGNS OF KINDNESS EVERYWHERE.

    Reply

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