Naomi Shihab Nye

Burning the Old Year

Naomi Shihab Nye | February 2022 (Vol. XXXV, No. 2)
...Quick dance,
shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn't do
crackle after the blazing dies.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye from "Burning the Old Year" in WORDS UNDER THE WORDS

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye | May 2021 (Vol. XXXIV, No. 5)
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth...

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing...
~ Naomi Shihab Nye from "Kindness" in WORDS UNDER THE WORDS

Famous

Naomi Shihab Nye | September 2020 (Vol. XXXIII, No. 8)
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye from "Famous"

I belong to the wide wind

Naomi Shihab Nye | March 2020 (Vol. XXXIII, No. 3)
Because this bird is singing to me,
I belong to the wide wind,
The people far away who share
The air and the clouds.
Together we are looking up
Into all we do not own
And we are listening.
~ by Naomi Shihab Nye from "Messages from Everywhere"
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