Enlighten Radio Presents
Poems of Kindness & Happiness
Broadcast LIVE Wednesday, May 17, 2023, 7 AM
Happiness
Jane Kenyon
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.
Our Blog Our Player Our Podcasts
Recovery Radio: The Miracle Thomas Interview
Enlighten Radio: The Storytelling Hour: May 13: Mothers and Almost Mothers
Winners and Losers: Goin’ To Mississippi Already in the Rear View Mirror
The Poetry Show: Hope Poems Are Not Always Hopeful
Labor Beat Radio: The Road Ahead
The \Turd Sandwich Cafe: The Nationals Cannot be Underestimated
Winners and Losers Radio: Local Politics -- the Higher Wages Candidate
The Poetry Show: The Spanish Civil War in Poetry
Labor Beat Radio, May 7: Labor and AI, Pt 1
Enlighten Radio: The Storytelling Hour: May 6: National Children's Book Week
The Turd Sandwich Café: Commander Looking Good
The Poetry Show: Native Voices for May Day, 2024
Labor Beat Radio: The Right to Organize a Union is On the Ballot, and the Line.
Enlighten Radio: The Storytelling Hour: April 29: The Poetry of Astronomy
Enlighten Radio: The Storytelling Hour: April 1: Blarney & Malarkey
The Poetry Show: The Wind
Winners and Losers: ”The will to do bad things” LIVES in Mississippi
Labor Beat Radio: Liberal Billionaires don’t think their wealth should be taxed
The Turd Sandwich Café: ISIS Joining Your Dinner Party?
The Poetry Show: The Cherry Blossom
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Dairyland Frights
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL