Poetry Friday - Kindnesses Noticed

 

             It's Poetry Friday! Thanks, Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge here, for hosting with lovely wishes for mothers, and a loving haiku after her grandson was born. 

              Last week when I hosted here, I shared a poem about kindness and a second article that was a collective poem by the same author who gathered comments from teens who wanted to share their personal experiences of kindness. So, I asked those here from Poetry Friday friends to write about theirs, too. Here is our own collaboration celebrating the kindnesses we appreciate in our own lives. Our world feels like a great recipe gone wrong these recent months. I am grateful for the special moments shared. 

Thanks to Margaret Simon for permission
to share. Her sharing about this is marked with
an asterisk!
"Beautiful people...
Beautiful place...
Beautiful plants..."

Kindness In Our Lives

 

       I'm also thankful for the kindness of the strangers that rushed to help you.

 

The subway riders in DC pushing us forward on a rush hour train to help us get off at our stop (2012) or the student who pressed a penny he saved into my palm telling me that It will help me to "save the world" after a year of hearing my environmental lessons in garden club - never once did I tell the children to "save the world," or just the person who holds the door open for me at the store. All small but important occurrences in my world that gave/give me hope. 

 

       Suggesting an exercise for a person with a painful foot cramp.

 

I like to think that kindness eventually wins.

 

       When a friend buys you dinner and asks -- genuinely -- how the writing is going.

 

Each summer, I love when my neighbor stops by and surprises me with fresh lettuce and squash from his garden.

 

       Just yesterday I was struck by the smile from a stranger who held the door for me while I crossed the street. That small act stayed with me all afternoon.

 

These poems are a balm...the balm I need.

 

       Kindness is a clerk at Lowe's loading bags of soil into the trunk of her own car to deliver to your school for the butterfly garden. *Kindness is the girl handing you a colorful picture of flowers, a multi-folded notebook page with a poem about kindness, and you don't even teach her. She just notices you in the carpool line and wants to make you smile again. 

 

When my next-door neighbor comes by with treats to celebrate her holidays. (I love being included in celebrating, even though I am unfamiliar with her holidays.) 

 

       Kindness is the generosity of fellow writers who help you lift your work to the next level.

 

Kindness is the friend who sends a poem, a podcast, an article, 
simply saying, "You'll love this," or "This made me think of you."

 

       I'm thankful for all the kindness that surrounded you in the aftermath of that accident. 

 

Out of this unfortunate incident, you've chosen to focus on the positive by sharing Lameris's initial poem, and then the collaborative one, a much-needed reminder of the power of small gestures towards our fellow human beings. 

 

       Today is kindness day at our end-of-school countdown.

 

When I ask someone to pull up their mask to keep me safe, and they're confused but do it anyway-- because they don't want me to be afraid, because they respect my right to live, because it costs them nothing but means everything to me

 

       I've been thinking about how complete I feel when I walk by the little free library in the touristy part of town and see that someone has filled it up with lovely volumes. 

 

When I mentioned our car problems, our daughter whose life is chaotically busy asked if we needed rides anywhere today. Also, when another person at the gym and I both go toward the same machine and then we both gesture to each other to go first. :>)

 

        Linda, kindness is you sharing these collaborative poems of kindness. It is kind of you to ask us to write a kindness that happened to us. Kindness is Michelle leaving a link so others could read the rest of the first poem you posted in case we couldn't use your link. Our oldest daughter is on a well-deserved beach vacation with her boyfriend and two other friends. Kindness is my daughter taking time to take video and photos of the ocean waves crashing and sharing them with me because she knows how much I love to see and hear ocean waves. Kindness is my cat purring while patiently waiting for me.

 

This afternoon I was with a fifth-grade class. We had just done a writing mini-lesson, and everyone was writing. It was quiet-  unusual for this particular class full of kids who love to talk. Then it started. A tickle in my throat. A little cough. A dry feeling in my throat. Another cough. This kept repeating. It was time for me to move on to my next group. As I was leaving, I heard my name spoken softly. And one of the boys held out his hand with a cough drop.  Wow.

Although I'm not a dog person, I smile when I see the clean & refreshed bowls of water left under the spigot at a local greenway popular with canines & their caretakers, as recently as this Monday. It's great when owners bring their own bowls, but even more wonderful that someone (multiple ones?) are caring for the panting canine community at large. 

 

       Kindness is a stranger's help lifting your sick dog into the car. I was driving to CA two days ago with a dog I thought had a bladder infection. But her pain was increasing with every mile. Something was wrong. When I stopped to let her out for a break, I couldn't get her back in the car. A young guy on a skateboard saw me crying, cajoling her. He helped me lift her, even as he told me he was afraid of dogs.

 

One recent example is a friend at work bringing me a bottle of vitamin C tablets when I had a bad cold. They really helped! 

 

       I've been under the weather, and the other day my sweet hubby went to 3 different pharmacies to get the meds I needed...and son brought food...it meant so much. xo

 

Thank you for hosting and for a poem about kindness - something we need so much. 

 

                                                                                                     penned by - ALL of us 

        I wonder if you've viewed this long ago? It's years old. Perhaps you've forgotten or perhaps, like me, I play it for others and for myself when a smile is needed. After reading all that you wrote, time to celebrate, right?