"Raise your words, not your voice.
It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder."
~ Rumi
Thanks to
Rebecca Davis' challenge this month, we've been raising our words in the name of kindness. Of course, kindness is recognized by many other names as well— generosity, thoughtfulness, patience, love,
compassion, helpfulness, forgiveness....
I've already received several lovely poetic expressions of kindness from Ditty of the Month Club participants. This week I featured three poems by
Jan Godown Annino,
Diane Mayr, and
my own, in honor of Veterans Day. My hope is that I'll receive many more, because... well... they make me happy, plain and simple.
Browsing through personal favorites I've collected over the years, I discovered quite a few poems on the subject of kindness. I'm sharing three of them today, so that you, too, can be inspired.
Do you have a favorite kindness poem? I'd love to know what it is in the comments.
Saint Francis and The Birds
by Seamus Heaney
When Francis preached love to the birds
They listened, fluttered, throttled up
Into the blue like a flock of words
Read the rest here.
Listen to a 1967 recording of Seamus Heaney reading his poem here.
The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
Read the rest here.
And this one from one of my very favorite poets, Janet S. Wong (used by permission of the author), from the award-winning
The Rainbow Hand: Poems About Mothers and Children (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1999):
The Rainbow Hand
by Janet S. Wong
Look
how the mother loves her baby,
how she holds him
with strong arms,
high
so the sun
can warm his face
so his bones will grow straight.
Look how she runs with him,
to send a cool breeze
through his toes,
how she makes
an umbrella
of her arms
when the rain
starts to fall.
And when lightning
flashes bright,
too bright,
see how she slips her hand
over his eyes,
her fingers curved
like a rainbow.
Wishing you rainbows of kindness...
Michelle xo
This week's Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by kindhearted Bridget Magee at
wee words for wee ones.
