Dear kindness, I feel there’s so much to say. It seems like the world has swallowed a nightmare pill. Somewhere between earth and mars -we are here. Are we ready to wake up?
I needed to run and write, like my life depends upon it. Only because I believe my life has wrapped itself around my faith.
These are the moments, we use our darkness to pursue light. Running to catch fire. Gently light the wings of the butterfly, running to carry tear drops in teacups. Running…
Moments of the darkness,
“We wear the mask” it shades our fears but not our eyes
unforgotten missions, weeping warriors,
our sighs’ our pleas, our hearts open, God, let it be…
“Nevertheless, not my will, but thine”
“surrendered battles, veils and temples, vinegar, and thorns
Dear Kindness, starting a garden without a green thumb is overwhelming. I felt like nothing would grow. After 4 weeks, I dropped the entire box of seedlings. I almost cried. Okay I did. I sat there in dirt for a moment.
Dirt seemed to fly every which way. I swept my little pods and placed them in the box.
Saddened by my butter-fingers. No one to blame but me. I’m always dropping something or knocking something over. I started praying, humming a little ditty in my spirit.
Praying over my house, over my plants, over my neighbors, over this pandemic and everything in between.
Praying and cleaning as usually. I went to bed and got up the next morning to my surprise things are growing.
Now, don’t ask me, what’s what? At this point. I’m overjoyed!
I just have to keep going and let nature run its course.
Plants are resilient little things, and so are we.
If ever there was such such a thing as Virtual Prayers -Hugs. This is the place to be! https://praypower4today.wordpress.com/ These ladies have become my prayer friends across the internet: There’s Sue giving out her wisdom, Auntie Ruth, delivering virtual booster shots of goodness, might I add, every now and then “a virtual punch in the arm.” Knocking out those bad vibes.
Then there’s Lori, she’s my writing sister, even though we’ve never physically met. I’ve been touched by her soul. Felt the warmth of her being, seen goodness flow from page to page. I’ve been brought back to life with her words. ( go on over – you won’t be disappointed ) Tell them, the kindness sister sent ya! https://praypower4today.wordpress.com/
Thanks Aunt Ruth for the 411 connect on this one. Lori and I share a love for poetry.
I think it’s only fitting for National Poetry Month.
Hope inside the soul has way of living in perilous times. Just when I think I’ve hit my lowest point. Or the bottom breaks from underneath me. There is hope stirring. Even on my street. Where the Bodega has closed, the young boy survived the latest shooting, at the church on 21 street. Recently he came to give his life back to God.
We taste hope just as the first lizard of the morning sticks out her tongue You’d not notice. It takes, as they say, an eye. to catch the beauty of the blue-winged dragonfly Still, spring cannot be contained; it bursts into bud: daffodils nodding, blonde and careless, trees shaking down three-doors down, in a small caddis, vagrant-vacant lot dripping with hunger petals, unseasonal flurries. New grass pokes shyly from the lawn, and smells, cut, just as it did last summer. Hope has no fairy tales with rewarding endings We are not the same, shaken as only the most microscopic menaces can make us. Yet. Hopes lives in the lives of shattered things Nothing can impede the rush to Easter. The stone rolls away, light as an egg. destined for rapture, of better things What lies inside is awaiting us.
poetry by Lori Strawn, (Lori’s words are Italic, mine are bold)
Dear Kindness, I’ve always lived facing something if it wasn’t, one thing it was ten other things. A great man once said “you must be able to weep and still be counted as warriors.”
That’s how I’ve been feeling as of late. I feel like sobbing the night away. I feel uncertainty like muddy clouds – my tiny raindrops, are for the angels to carry.
Sometimes when things get to heavy the human body has ways of discarding what it no longer needs. In the words of the good book. I’m paraphrasing, “weeping may endure for one night, but joy must come” joy will come, and we shall have joy after while”
Dear kindness, I keep showing up here, while the world is always overly busy. I’m finally learning,- learning to slow down, catch a glimpse of the breeze I’ve been chasing. Air so crisp and light. I exhale my many roles, of many hats, bag-lady-queen,
sip kindly my blueberry tea-percolating.
Inwardly the steps I’ve been making,
air-tight cultivating, reservoirs of faith
in times like these, our gatherings were not in vain
Dear Kindness, it was not so long ago, I was sitting in choir practice. Okay 29 years ago but not so long ago. I was singing my lungs out to “When you believe by Mariah Carey and great-late, Whitney Houston.”
Seems like yesterday… that’s when the memories, all flooded back.
After practice my teacher Mrs. Ford said Krissy I’m driving you home. I didn’t think anything of it because some teachers have been known to go above and beyond the call of duty.
There I was hopping out the car saying thank you to Mrs Ford. When she said not so fast is that you mom’s car in the drive way? I’ll think I’ll have a little talk with mom. “Okay” I said quickly. By then Mom was opening the door in her security guard uniform.
Mrs. Ross, will you allow me to give this to you? Before Mama could answer she put a wad of bills into my mother’s hand, “that’s to get your car fixed.” My brother, sister and I began hugging my choir teacher. Saying thank you but that wasn’t the end. She’d taken us all out to eat at the best shop in town.
Back then they called those sandwiches poor’boys’ long fluffy bread rolls up into whatever topping you wanted . The smell of mesquite wood, fire, and honey baked cinnamon sticks for dessert.
Mrs. Ford’s deeds were kind, in so much I’ve never forgotten this act of kindness. I’m doing my part to pay it forward.
They are tiny miracles, wherever you are thank you Mrs. Ford.
I came here because the the world is always changing. Sometimes I am too.
Yet and still…
I believe human kindness is a way of putting our arms around the world with compassion in raw un-edited truth that changes the way we write poetry. Kindness, I believe is a moral lifestyle. I’m just trying to do my part in making the world a better place.
I believe kindness-poetry can be felt- chirping off the page. Even now, there’s this gentle nudge that lets’ me know, I’m not alone. That’s kindness.
I believe in kind words that can grab you from the edge of defeat, place you in the center of everything and watch your spirit rise. In the words of Alice Walker, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
That’s kindness too.
I believe kind-poetry in this kind-way lift voices out of ghost towns, and ghettos, and prisons- and makes our human experience- transform as to what it has been into visions of hope, and growth and strengthen our mere existence from invisible, margins of living and dying but we all could use kindness as a way of loving ourselves and each other. We could all use human kindness to rebuild extraordinary lives from what has been,
Krissy Mosley Ministries 