Na Po Wri Mo – April 3 2023

Today was a challenge but I have something to share.

See here if you are curious how this piece came about: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-three-9/

Beyond Happiness 

After you know what kindness really is, 

you may find ordinary things like a smile, 

a tear, or a touch, taste like honey.

What you let fall from your hand,

what you discounted and threw away

must stay, so you know how joyful

a moment can be within the vast, 

open landscape of kindness.

At first, you stumble along fearing 

you will never find the path, envying 

others who are already there.

After you discover the light of kindness

you must stay with the one who is fighting

themselves and see how this could be you,

how they too are someone who travelled 

with no plans and a complicated breath.

After you know kindness as the only thing,

you will know happiness as the shallowest thing.

You may go to sleep with happiness, dream 

of it until your subconscious snags on the gauze 

of all pain and wake, knowing the size of your wound.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense,

only kindness that unties your ankles,

sends you out into the night to find the path,

only kindest that lowers its head

from the solitariness that is you to say,

It is you I have been searching for,

and then accompanies you everywhere

like the friend you have never had.