Wednesday Prayer

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 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 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 raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is you I have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

~ from Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye