Words Under the Words

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"
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