Like a Blessing

"The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood and seen. 

There is no judgement or harsh perception directed toward you. 

Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. 

Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. 

Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of colour and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference."

in 

John O'Donohue,To Bless the Space Between Us

A Poem of God and the Devil

Cântico Negro

"Vem por aqui" - dizem-me alguns com olhos doces

Estendendo-me os braços, e seguros

De que seria bom que eu os ouvisse

Quando me dizem: "vem por aqui!"

Eu olho-os com olhos lassos,

(Há, nos olhos meus, ironias e cansaços)

E cruzo os braços,

E nunca vou por ali...

A minha glória é esta:

Criar desumanidade!

Não acompanhar ninguém.

- Que eu vivo com, ou mesmo sem,  a vontade

Com que rasguei o ventre à minha mãe

Não, não vou por aí! Só vou por onde

Me levam meus próprios passos...

Se o que busco saber nenhum de vós responde

Por que me repetis: "vem por aqui!"?

Prefiro escorregar nos becos lamacentos,

Redemoinhar aos ventos,

Como farrapos, arrastar os pés sangrentos,

A ir por aí...

Se vim ao mundo, foi

Só para desflorar florestas virgens,

E desenhar meus próprios pés na areia inexplorada!

O mais que faço não vale nada.

Como, pois sereis vós

Que me dareis impulsos, ferramentas e coragem

Para eu derrubar os meus obstáculos?...

Corre, nas vossas veias, sangue velho dos avós,

E vós amais o que é fácil!

Eu amo o Longe e a Miragem,

Amo os abismos, as torrentes, os desertos...

Ide! Tendes estradas,

Tendes jardins, tendes canteiros,

Tendes pátrias, tendes tectos,

E tendes regras, e tratados, de filósofos, e sábios...

Eu tenho a minha Loucura !

Levanto-a, como um facho, a arder na noite escura,

E sinto espuma, e sangue, e cânticos nos lábios...

Deus e o Diabo é que guiam, mais ninguém.

Todos tiveram pai, todos tiveram mãe;

Mas eu, que nunca principio nem acabo,

Nasci do amor que há entre Deus e o Diabo.

Ah, que ninguém me dê piedosas intenções!

Ninguém me peça definições!

Ninguém me diga: "vem por aqui"!

A minha vida é um vendaval que se soltou.

É uma onda que se alevantou.

É um átomo a mais que se animou...

Não sei por onde vou,

Não sei para onde vou

- Sei,  que não vou por aí!

José
Régio, in 'Poemas de Deus e do Diabo'

Petting, petting, petting 

"I sit and think:

Bearing so many forms, so many names,

I come down, crossing the threshold..."

I wonder if I know him

In whose speech is my voice,

In whose movement is my being,

Whose skill is in my lines,

Whose melody is in my songs

In joy and sorrow.

I thought he was chained within me,

Contained by tears and laughter,

Work and play.

I thought he was my very self

Coming to an end with my death.

Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him

In the sight and touch of my beloved?

This ‘I’ beyond self I found

On the shores of the shining sea.

Therefore I know

This ‘I’ is not imprisoned within my bounds.

Losing myself, I find him

Beyond the borders of time and space.

Through the Ages

I come to know his Shining Self

In the life of the seeker,

In the voice of the poet.

From the dark clouds pour the rains.

I sit and think:

Bearing so many forms, so many names,

I come down, crossing the threshold

Of countless births and deaths.

The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,

Embracing past and present,

Dwells in Man.

Within Him I shall find myself -

The ‘I’ that reaches everywhere.

Rabindranath Tagore

The Unbroken

There is a brokenness

out of which comes the unbroken,

a shatteredness

out of which blooms the unshatterable.

There is a sorrow

beyond all grief which leads to joy

and a fragility

out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space

too vast for words

through which we pass with each loss,

out of whose darkness

we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound

whose serrated edges cut the heart

as we break open to the place inside

which is unbreakable and whole,

while learning to sing.

Rashani Réa

“There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”                                                                                                                                              Rumi 

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