Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
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.”

Small Kindnesses

I first posted this poem in the long-ago summer of 2019, that time before we came to know viruses and war. Now that we are living with both, this is the poem that came to my mind as I considered what to share with you today – a gentle yet fierce reminder of what is truly important when We have so little of each other, now. So far / from tribe and fire.

After two rich years of weekly poems, I am moved to say that I choose these poems to offer a shaft of light in otherwise dark times. These are not messages of positivity nor denial of ugly realities; these poems don’t change what is. What they can do, I believe, is give us a moment of respite, of possibilities. No one can take away beauty once seen, joy once felt; this is what tethers us to the world, creates a small oasis of peace. These poems capture that for me.

As Laméris says of these small kindnesses: What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these / fleeting temples we make together. What if these brief moments of exchange, of kindness, make a difference? How can they not?