Only Kindness Makes Sense

A flood of poetry on this Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day & inauguration day

I don’t have a whole lot of words today so, I am accepting the amazing Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s invitation to flood the world with poems on this Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day & inauguration day.

Below are a few poems I have collected (that speak to the theme that Rosemerry speaks of). The first one is mine, the others are by some of my very favorite poets.

Please join us in flooding the world with love & kindness. It really is the only thing that makes sense.

With so, so much love,

Julia xo

PS: Be sure to listen to the gorgeous recording of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “Kindness,” spoken by Kim Rosen. Such beauty…

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With no poems at tomorrow’s inauguration, let’s dare to write and share poems about what it means to be a good citizen, about our visions and hopes and dreams for our country. —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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We Were Made for This by Julia Fehrenbacher

I want to fill this space
with words that will erase the distance
between your certainty and mine

make room under the big, empty sky
for grace to sit, move closer
until skin touches skin, eyes see eyes.

Maybe we can take a good, deep
breath, clear body and mind of all
that’s come before. Promise
to pay attention, to stay—
especially when it hurts.

Maybe this time we will see
that it has nothing
to do with who we’ve been
or who we think we are

and everything
to do with being fiercely here—
like breath is for life. Yes,
like that.

Maybe—perhaps, we can begin
and begin again with—I don’t know. See
that it takes just one step toward
to erase the distance
that was only ever a thought.

Dinner is on the stove, will you join me?

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"I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems." — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Please click on Rosemerry’s name (below) to link to her invitation to flood the world with poetry on this inauguration day & Dr. Martin Luther Kind Jr. day)

Steadfast by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Though a cold
wind is howling,
we’re not birds
without wings—
and as long as we
have voices
let us sing together,
sing of freedom,
sing what’s true,
let us sing.

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In Kim Rosen’s words:

IN HONOR OF MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY and to spread KINDNESS at this volatile moment in the evolution of American Democracy, Jami Sieber and I are offering our latest release free for one day only!!! There is no inaugural poet gracing the events at the capital today (big surprise). So as the wise Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer said, LET'S FLOOD THE WORLD WITH POEMS! LET'S FLOOD THE WORLD WITH KINDNESS! Please download and spread the word!

KINDNESS by Naomi Shihab Nye: Spoken by Kim Rosen, Music by Jami Sieber

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Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

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 gaze at 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.

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"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Change by James Crews

No matter how painful the change,
let yourself become a new creation.
Do you think the maples push out
their red buds each spring without
an ache in the skin of their limbs?
Do you think the marsh ferns unfurl
without effort, without missing the selves
they once were? Each frond like a newly
feathered wing reaching up into this
uncertain air we all breathe together.

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The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac (Part 3) by Mary Oliver

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you're in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it's happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then, and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime."

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Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

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Poet’s Substack pages (link below)

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, James Crews , Danusha Laméris

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