VERY HEAVY VERY 'UMBLE

There are times that I feel truly humble. 

 Yesterday I posted about the problems we have been having with computers, and - in particular - about how the data retrieval from my two knackered drives is going to cost £399. I did it to explain why some of the work I am doing will be heinously overdue, and also to vent off steam. I certainly wasn't asking for help. But two friends of the CFZ, Steve Jones and Terry Colvin were kind enough to send me totally unsolicited donations, which together have pretty well paid for the repairs. Thank you - both of you - from the bottom of my heart. 

Last night  Dave B-P and Jess came round to see us, and a little wine was drunk. After they left, Corinna went into the office and found a parcel which the postman had delivered and that I had singularly failed to spot. 

I opened it, and it is a beautifully inscribed book of poetry by and from the lovely Karen Gensheimer, another long time friend of the CFZ. It even has a poem about me with it. I was totally touched. 

There are times that the modern world in which we live feels isolating, implacable and horrid, but there are other times - like now - when I am just overwhelmed by the level of love and kindness that I encounter, sometimes from people that I have not even met face to face. Thank you my friends.

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 mail letters and
purchase 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 every where
like a shadow or a friend.

by Naomi Shihab Nye from “Words Under the Words”