Small Kindnesses
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."
by Danusha Lameris
What do you think? Do you like this? The author is poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. It's wonderful to me that Santa Cruz County has its own poet laureate. I know that the US has a poet laureate and that North Carolina does, as other states do. And about a dozen national governments, including Great Britain. I even knew that the poet Petrarch was crowned Poet Laureate in Rome (in 1341 but I didn't know the date), hence the term "laureate." My own little corner of the world has its Piedmont Laureate (www.piedmontlaureate.org), not necessarily a poet, but someone who promotes the literary arts in the schools and community. For a US county or city or Borough (Fresno, CA and the Borough of Brooklyn for example) to want poetry as part of its identity is encouraging I think.
After all, look at Lameris' poem. I read an analysis by another poet, Naomi Nye, in the NYT magazine (Sept. 19, 2019). She says that the poem breezes compliments and simple care, is a catalogue of small encouragements and celebrates graciousness within the community. One reader's comments caught what I bet many of us feel. She wrote, "When I read this poem everything around me softened for a moment." Yes, me too.
The poem makes me especially think about interactions between women, how we chat with strangers and affirm each other. I feel like I can say that without fear of contradiction. How many times haven't I received a compliment on my mustard-yellow hobo bag? Or my little peep-toe flats that tie with a grosgrain ribbon? If your tag shows someone just might tuck it in for you. Or pick-up something you've dropped but not noticed. I like it that when you hear a "Bless You" from a neighboring carrel it means "Don't die." We're not saying that literally of course, but the history of the courtesy shows how long we have been caring for one another.
Small kindnesses always stand for something more, something unspoken: our needs, our gifts, how we navigate the rigors of life. As an English teacher once, someone who can find solace in John Donne or Emily Dickinson or Mary Oliver, I am glad to now be acquainted with the Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, CA. I'll start with The Moons of August (2013) and go from there.
What's gone
Is not quite gone, but lingers,
Not the language, but the bones
of the language. Not the beloved,
but the dark bed the beloved makes
inside our bodies.
I can't wait to read more of this poet. "The the dark bed the beloved makes inside our bodies." Wow. Can language get better than that? Such an unexpected blessing found today.
Nina Naomi
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