
Week 5 “Before you know what kindness really is…”
Updated: May 9, 2020
Poems written by Untold Stories poets in response to the prompt “Before you know what kindness really is…” from Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Kindness.

Offering
-Jayanthi Reddy
My first year as a teacher,
I got my ass handed to me daily
by so-called young impressionable minds.
As the bell would ring,
students would filter out of class
and every now and then
one of them would sense my despair
and tell me a joke
as I fought back tears.
Likely unknowing that their kindness
still makes me smile
each offering
shows what is possible.
Before You Know What Kindness Is
-Zainab Chaaban
Before you know what kindness is, you want for the other what you want for yourself. It is easy to lean towards famous figures, popular people, tourist attractions. What if instead of going to the famous people, we lean to the least known. The person hiding from it all. The tiny village that does not attract many and give attention to their city. Appreciate the smallest things. Kindness is that knot in your heart that you go to try to untie it.
If I help this large corporation, they in return can help me right back. If I help this orphan scrambling for his/her next meal, and leave empty handed...I can untie the knot. Maybe loosen it a little so it's easier to breath. Kindness is unseen, unheard, unfelt....until you step in.
Kiss and Tell
-Leseliey Rose
Breathe the dust
Of things and time
Fallen apart and away
Let it inflame your airways
Wail under mourning suns
Tears with no sounds
Stay present, persist
Surrender and kiss
Witness the battle
Between the victim and the savior inside
Both losing
No victory flags to fly
Peace not still
Abide in the grace
Of tender winds
Alone and engulfed
Birth fire
From the bowels
Of your belly
By the light of
majestic moons
Bathe in the warmth
Of pink salt rains
And live
To tell
The story
Faithful Humility
-Erika Murcia
Holding hands as we
formed a circle to pray
so the bombing
in the mountains
in front of
our home
would be stopped
Walking barefoot to school
while forming a fun train
so the feeling of fear
in our bodies
our home
would be released
Hugging tightly my kindergarten peers and teachers
while crying inside our roofless classroom
so the gun shooting
nearby
our home
would have been only dreamed
Eating raw food harvested
in our garden
so the traumatizing impacts
of hunger
in our guts/stomach
our home
would be healed
Surviving our community's exodus
in a foreign country
so that our storytelling
of collective suffering
in our villages
honored 75,000 plus Brown human bodies slaughtered they
our home
they would be remembered and mourned
Tío Jorge
-Julie Quiroz
Mi tío Jorge
was the shortest man I’d ever seen
so close to our kid size
his brown wool sweater
could have fit me.
Never grown-up busy
he moved quietly
the way moss grows
impervious to traffic
at the speed
of one moment.
Tío Jorge was kind
like he knew cruel,
empty,
ugly.
Kind
like that was all
we had.