An hour after we light the tree,
it’s hard to remember
how the room used to be—
so soon we relax into radiance.
It makes me want to whisper
luminous words, string kindnesses
together like twinkling garland,
hang them wherever it’s dim.
If we all spoke in light,
imagine that glow—how
quickly even the darkest spaces
inside and between us
could become welcoming,
warm, even, imagine, incandescent.
Posts Tagged ‘kindness’
So Soon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged christmas tree, kindness, light on December 18, 2025| 4 Comments »
In the Airport, I Wonder about Enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged enough, fear, helplessness, kindness on July 28, 2025| 8 Comments »
Could they ever be enough,
these stumbling attempts
to bring kindness to an aching world?
Enough, this holding the door for a stranger,
this saying I’m sorry, this holding a place in line?
How could it be enough, asks the ache,
when today I saw the photo of the mother
holding the starving child in Gaza,
his brown legs as thin as my wrists.
I am sick with helplessness.
What does it mean, enough?
Beside me on a bench,
a man I have never met is humming.
His tune blooms like a sun in my chest.
The warmth twines with the beat of my question,
How could any small act be enough?
Until the child in the photo and all children
are safe and fed and loved and held by loving mothers
who are safe and fed and loved
and held by loving others who are safe
and fed and loved—until then,
how could anything ever be enough?
The old man beside me has started to sing.
His eyes are closed, and his
low gentle voice braids beauty
into everything around him.
Even the questions that will never
have answers. Even this terrible ache.
How deeply I want to believe
it is not too late to save this world.
Anyone can see she’s a beautiful woman, but god,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, generosity, goodness, kindness, ping pong, play, role model, transformation on March 16, 2025| 9 Comments »
for Erin
Anyone can see she’s a beautiful woman, but god,
she has never been more beautiful to me than when
I brought my great nephews to the loft of her barn
and she picked up a red ping pong paddle and let
the small, fretful boy across the old green table make up
the rules for the game. And every time he’d change the rules—
assigning points for hitting the ball over the exposed beams
of the barn or points for hitting the ball into narrow window frames—
no matter the rules he contrived, she would shrug and say yes
and laugh and let the ball be forever in play. There was sunshine
in her voice when she praised him, pure radiance
in the way she squealed as the ball ricocheted
in the rafters, honest incandescence in her smile.
This is how generosity and goodness survive—
they’re passed on one brief interaction at a time.
When the boys and I left that dusty, sacred space,
fully covered in dust and hay, I swear we, too, were luminous.
Some Good News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged goodness, humanity, kindness, news on February 25, 2025| 4 Comments »
It’s like driving over a hill
the day after a flood
only to discover on calm water
a gathering of trumpet swans,
the elegant stretch of their long necks rising,
their white wings spread wide in arrival.
Or like skiing through a vast valley
only to find another trail that leads you
into a grove of elder cedar trees,
their great trunks humbling you,
their balsamic scent opening
in the shade like holy incense.
Yes, that’s what it’s like when,
in a world that feels hostile and hateful,
you arrive in a faraway town full of strangers
who welcome you into warm rooms
filled with bright cloths, with soft guitar,
with fringed yellow tulips in blue vases.
Yes, that’s what it’s like when,
after listening to the firehose of the news,
you meet new friends who speak with you
of moss and making baskets and singing and seeds,
and your heart leaps up like a crocus in spring,
alive with the truth of how good it can be, this life.
Even in a Time of Intolerance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authenticity, change, intolerance, kindness, love, responsibility on February 13, 2025| 17 Comments »
“We all have a part in shifting the story.”
—Joy Harjo, 23rd US Poet Laureate
There is, in an overfull classroom,
a woman teaching not only history,
but compassion. There’s a barista
making hearts in the foam
of every cappuccino she serves.
There’s man helping another man
on crutches as he struggles to cross
the icy street. There’s a library room full of women
chanting about praying for their enemy.
There are students raising money
to help those with breast cancer and AIDS.
Two girls are laughing for the joy of laughing
’til their faces are tear-streaked
and their ribs and bellies are sore.
There’s a poet who pours courage and music
into every word she shares with the world.
And another woman hears those words
and thinks, “Me. That poet is talking to me.”
This is how we change the world one kind act,
one true word, one long laugh at a time. Because
now, that woman is ablaze with wondering:
What is my part in shifting the story?
And in This Way, He Still Lives
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, dad, kindness, legacy on October 30, 2024| 21 Comments »
for my dad
There was that time that he bought
a television for the woman who came
to the house to clean while he and mom were sick.
She had mentioned offhand hers had broken.
He was like that. Would take smoked salmon
for the men and women at the firehouse.
Would make certificates for people
to honor kind things they had done.
It was as if he could read the small thought bubbles
that appear above people’s heads,
the ones we read in cartoons
but can’t see in real life,
the ones that say what they really need,
and then he’d offer a kindness.
Not that he was a saint.
My god, could he get angry.
Not that he looked for people to care for,
more that he really looked at the people
who came across his path.
This is how I want him to live on in me,
his hands guiding mine to give.
What We Sow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bees, flowers, kindness, wild iris on May 31, 2024| 8 Comments »
More than twenty years ago,
I planted several wild iris beside the pond.
Today, I sit beside a generous patch
of fluttering blue flags and watch
a gold-dusted bumblebee clumsily
swerve from bloom to bloom to bloom.
Such joy they bring, these wild iris that rise
and multiply every spring. They remind me of how
kindness, too, is rhizomic, how
years ago you planted in me
something beautiful before you left.
If you came again to my shores,
would you be surprised to see
how your kindness continues to spread?
Make a Wish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, candle, friendship, kindness, light on May 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »
for JS
No cake and no you.
Still, I light a candle
on your birthday
and notice the way
one small flame
changes the feel
of a whole room.
I think of your light
and how many
gather around it,
how quietly you invite
the shadows to dance,
how gently one person
can change the world.
When Molly held out her tight leather vest
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, friendship, generosity, giving, kindness, Molly Venter, receiving, vest on May 21, 2024| 9 Comments »
with its two-foot-long green fringe
and suggested I could borrow it,
I felt that long familiar clench in my chest
as the word no puckered on my lips.
The clench said, who was I
to borrow clothes from Molly Venter?
It said who was I to wear
flirty and sexy green leather fringe?
It said, can’t you dress yourself?
I don’t know why I held out my hand,
but as soon as I did, I relaxed.
That whole night, as the long green fringe
swished and swayed all flirty around my thighs
no one else knew I was dressed in kindness.
No one knew I was alive with the blessing
of new friendship. But perhaps they could sense
I was honey-blissed on the inside with the thrill
of wearing Molly Venter’s vest,
so much more than just a sleeveless scrap of fabric—
I was wrapped in the velvet of her voice,
the willow tree of her wisdom,
the raw delight in her guitar
and the freedom that comes when
we receive the gifts of others.
Days later, dressed a slouchy cardigan,
I’m still wearing the generosity I saw in her eyes
as she handed me the vest—
I feel that fringe swish with every step I take.
When My Mother Makes Me Tea
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, intention, kindness, love, mother, tea on April 30, 2024| 3 Comments »
It is kindness that moves her hand
to flip the switch on the hot pot,
and somehow a movement
that’s merely a flick is transformed
into an act of great love. It is kindness
that helps her choose the mug
she thinks I’d like the most—
not too small, not too big,
not too clunky. Perhaps the one
with pansies. Perhaps the one
that was dad’s. There is kindness
in the way she unwraps the tea bag,
my favorite earl gray, the bergamot
floral and strong. Kindness in the way
she pours in the soy milk,
the kind I like best, organic,
unsweetened, something she would
never drink herself but will always
have on hand for me. And so when
I wake in her bed and she tells me,
I’ve made you a cup of tea,
I know she is also saying
you are so precious to me.
I taste it in every sip, how warm it is,
how generous, the black tea so bright,
the milk so creamy, so smooth.
even with no sugar, so sweet.