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avg rating: 4.02
| 1,447 ratings
| 271 reviews
| 37 distinct works
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More books by Naomi Shihab Nye…
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Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 3.61 — 323 ratings — published 1997 5 editions |
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Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (A Far Corner Book) by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 4.43 — 187 ratings — published 1994 2 editions |
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19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 3.95 — 168 ratings — published 2002 4 editions |
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Fuel by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 4.13 — 91 ratings — published 1998 |
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Red Suitcase: Poems (American Poets Continuum Series, Vol. 29) by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 4.31 — 72 ratings — published 1994 2 editions |
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Honeybee by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 3.93 — 56 ratings — published 2008 3 editions |
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What Have You Lost? by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 4.00 — 55 ratings — published 1999 4 editions |
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This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 4.36 — 44 ratings — published 1992 2 editions |
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Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 4.46 — 41 ratings — published 1996 |
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I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven by Naomi Shihab Nye avg rating 4.00 — 44 ratings — published 2007 2 editions |
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"I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page."
— Naomi Shihab Nye
— Naomi Shihab Nye
"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.
Colombia"
— Naomi Shihab Nye (Words Under the Words: Selected Poems)
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.
Colombia"
— Naomi Shihab Nye (Words Under the Words: Selected Poems)
tags:
kindness
8 people liked it
"Anyone who says,“Here’s my address, write me a poem,”deserves something in reply.So I’ll tell you a secret instead: poems hide.In the bottoms of our shoes, they are sleeping.They are the shadows drifting across our ceilings the moment before we wake up. What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them."
— Naomi Shihab Nye
— Naomi Shihab Nye
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