"His Life" and "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Poet of Empathy and Kindness

My poetry and the poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye, in some ways, couldn’t be more different. No matter how much I have tried to be a half-glass-full guy (transcendental meditation since 1975, study of Buddhism, community service), because of my Irish Catholic black-humor genes, I have barely made it to the quarter-full line on the measuring cup of life, though, by God, I’m still working on it. One reason I am a prose poet is because that genre, more than any other, gives me room to play with comic juxtapositions and to attack the duplicitous language of faulty grand narratives that various institutions daily inflict on us. (Like suggesting our country’s current financial fiascos will cause “minor disturbances” for people, as if losing a quarter of one’s buying power is equal to an upset tummy).

In short, as my above complaint suggests, I certainly have the desire to be an optimist, but, as a wise man once said, “Need is not quite belief.”

In contrast to me, Naomi Shihab Nye is truly the poet of kindness and empathy. She sees the same darkness and unfairness that I do, but processes it through a lens of hope and optimism, and she accomplishes this feat without writing self-indulgent or sappy poems. In “His Life,” the prose poem below, she proves that prose poetry welcomes all styles and sensibilities, and in her verse poem, “Kindness,” (which ends this post), she proves to be a master of that genre too.

Every time I finish reading a Naomi Shihab Nye poem, especially a poem like “Kindness,” I feel as if I have come a bit closer to the Divine, as if I have more empathy for the human condition and for the joys and sufferings of my fellow travelers. Her poetry is about connection, not division, which is why, during these divisive times, I’d like to spend a few moments celebrating the poetry of this gracious, authentic lady.

If what I say above sounds like hyperbole, consider this short anecdote. About fifteen years ago, my two sons and I waited in line for four hours to meet Jane Goodall and have her sign our books. When my time came, she looked at me and hesitated, as if she recognized me. Then she smiled, signed my book, softly touched my hand, and thanked me. For the first time in my life, I felt as if someone saw me for who I really was, while, at the same time, gifting me an unexplainable unconditional hopefulness for whatever fate might await me.

That’s how I feel when reading Naomi’s work.

Below, I offer to you Naomi’s prose poem “His Life,” along with her commentary on it. After that, I’ve reprinted her verse masterpiece, “Kindness”—a poem everyone should read at least once a week.

For more about Naomi go to Naomi

HIS LIFE

I don’t know what he thinks about. At night the vault of his face closes up. He could be underground. He could be buried treasure. He could be a donkey trapped in the Bisbee Mine, lowered in so long ago with pulleys and belts, kicking, till its soft fur faded and eyes went blind. They made donkeys pull the little carts of ore from seam to seam. At night, when the last men stepped into the creaking lift, the donkeys cried. Some lived as long as seventeen years down there. The miners still feel bad about it. They would have hauled them out to breathe real air in the evenings, but the chute was so deep and they’d never be able to force them in again.

COMMENTARY

Prose poems invite us to make dramatic or delicately odd leaps into the deep—with no extensive build-up, prefacing or afterwards. I admire their directness. I admire their faith in us—that we may, if lucky, if similarly seized, follow their meanderings into some compelling region. In “His Life” I stare at a person I should know very well but don’t, then (for relief?) dive into the old mine at Bisbee, Arizona, which I had recently visited, remembering what the ex-miner, now tour guide, told our group after we plied him with questions (tears clouded his eyes and he brushed them away). After the piece is over, I ruminate about lives, whether animal or human, spent in tied-up situations, but do I have to spell that out? No, no, no!

There is something infinitely satisfying in the blocky shape of the prose poem, after all the angularity and spaciousness of the more vertical poetry form. Prose poems are a refreshment, an oasis by the long reading highway. Entrances and exits are clearly marked. It is easy to feel engaged.

The prose-poem shape also suggests pockets and tables. It is curious how comforted I feel simply to see one popping up somewhere. I am restored to that brief time in first grade when we were invited (by our surly teacher, in my own case) to “make paragraphs” —once we had mastered the tricky art of the “sentence.” What a wonder that was! The simple linkage of lines into a satisfying little house-shapes with windows and doors, dots and doormats . . . all my school-life I was waiting to be invited to make “a paragraph” again. But it was never enough for anybody.

[from A Cast-iron Aeorplane That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries from 80 Contemporary American Poets on Their Prose Poetry, edited by Peter Johnson Cast-iron

And now for “Kindness.”

Kindness

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.

[From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.] Words Under the Words

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You can find Peter Johnson’s books, along with interviews with him, appearances, and other information at peterjohnsonauthor.com

His most recent book of prose poems is While the Undertaker Sleeps: Collected and New Prose Poems

His most recent book of fiction is Shot: A Novel in Stories

Find out why he is giving away his new book of prose poem/fragments, even though he has a publisher for it, by downloading the PDF from the below link or going to OLD MAN’S homepage. His “Note to the Reader” and “Introduction” at the beginning of the PDF explains it all: Observations from the Edge of the Abyss