From here.

The ache in my bones

I forget

because we are too busy

playing

And going every way

feeling

the sunlight and sounds

of every step.

Time, trickling by

into the river

and if you sit a while

the quiet is loud.

Forget the din

of the city,

Cross ridges without

looking both ways.

Here, I will dress

lightly,

Letting go of a few things

there and there.

I walk in Love,

this way and that,

to greet the breeze on my cheek,

every color a gift.

If we were made for Longing,

then tell me,

which way is it to

a clear path to run?

The thing is...

The thing about real life is that important events don't announce themselves. Trumpets don't blow, drums don't beat to let you know you are going to meet the most important person you've ever met, or read the most important thing you are ever going to read, or have the most important conversation you are ever going to have, or spend the most important week you are ever going to spend. Usually something that is going to change your whole life is a memory before you can stop and be impressed about it. You don't usually have a chance to get excited about that sort of thing... ahead of time!

-Edith Schaeffer, L'Abri

Some days are harder than others.

I hope some day I know why.

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

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 gaze at 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.