Kindness

There is too little understanding in this world of the strength behind kindness. To be gentle, empathetic, considerate, sensitive and compassionate is not a gift freely handed to the half-willing, nor is it the curse of the weak. True kindness requires thorny, gruelling questions of oneself and a complete dissection (and often undoing), of inner beliefs.

To know kindness in its most raw form, there must first be an uncomfortable 

unravelling of the mind’s deepest secrets and the honest forgiveness of oneself. Only then, can life – and the people we walk with in life – be loved with deep, beautiful, unrequited (but conditional), wonderful fullness. ------- If and when you hear somebody described as too kind, too gentle,  too soft or too sensitive, or when you yourself use those words with distaste to describe the ‘lacking of a backbone’ – know that the backbone of kindness is the most courageous of them all. Behind the face that smiles warmly is a body that has borne the weight of suffering and learnt to forgive. There, behind kindness is the bearer of loss who has learnt to keep giving. There, behind kindness is the traveller who has journeyed inward to find strength to love outward.

Notice when you stumble on the depths of compassion in the shallows of the world, beneath the chaos of a roaring life: in the waitress that is determined, and the till keeper that loves his job, the Uber driver that cares to ask about your family, the friend whose presence does not condone cruelty, the protector whose hand reaches out even when they themselves experience fear… When you see kindness – in its pure and gentle form – 

recognise the strength that is in your presence. Understand the brave choice that that kindness has required, and ask yourself,

 “What will be my choice?”

Artwork by a lion-spirit friend, Kerri Dunshea https://www.instagram.com/art.by.kez/?hl=en

African Bones

On an African morning,

Where the half circle becomes whole

Where sun lifts from the source, a rising flame from a bowl

Where yellow grass shimmers beneath bending blue folds

Red soil licks bare feet –

And it sticks to the soul

On an African day,

Where the river rolls like a hymn

Where colours are rich and where wanting wears thin

Where peace lives beneath branches

And branches arch in green praise

Towards the face of the sun

In sepia rays

On an African evening,

Where the African roof is a bougevvilla coloured sky

Where the laughter is deeper and smiles are bright

The voices, that are heavier,

Sing the anthems of light

Where the red dusk of the day gives birth to new night

On an African night,

Where dappled dusk falls and dappled clouds rise

Where Kudus move sleepily and the nightjar cries

Where elephants make thunder and dry sands call rain

Lightening makes art

And the whole sky is its frame

In an African soul,

Wherever a travelling soul goes,

Strength, like a mountain, still carries the bones

Deep in that place, with new seasons and old

African laughter from ribs like a river still flows

And African love runs rich and fast in the veins

Carrying the soul

That red soil has stained

Images by my dear friend, Alexandrina Fleming https://www.anamcarafilmstudios.com/alexandrina

Passenger

Truth first came gently on a cold school night 

And said, “all that’s living will die. To know yourself, first know I.”

For a bit I thought of death and cried

And then stopped quickly. Abruptly.  And said,

“Go away, I’m fine”

And shut my heart so truth couldn’t come back 

And put stories of myself in an old backpack

And walked out in the stars to that place trains would chug 

And pushed down pain

With a confident stare, 

A shrug 

And clambered on the carriage

And raced out fast into the night 

And celebrated in vain: I was a passenger to life

Years passed; the bag stayed close and grew,

Outside was passing in a whirr while we laughed and drank spirits 

Where we didn’t know our own

And bonds with money and people

began to feel like home

Life grew louder as we filled it right up

And only left space for the things 

that we called grown up

And we were nice mostly, because it seemed like the 

right thing to do

But when vulnerability came close

We would laugh, “Fuck you”

God came back in a moment of quiet and asked,

 “are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

I said. And no tears came.

And denial carried on.

I kept telling myself then, 

“You belong, you belong”

And people I thought were permanent left. 

And when my health was bad, I shouted – “theft”. 

My heart broke too, but I stayed somehow windswept 

And filled a void with new glitter 

Though I cried to one I loved, who lied,

And heard an echo with no reply

And in the quiet, god said

 “you won’t find forever on this ride”

And I said, 

“Go away, I’m fine”

Life moved. I kept my eyes off truth 

And the ground became noisier

The carriage became busier 

And my thoughts became louder, 

and someone died

Sitting right beside me. Mid sentence.

Right at the comma,

where you were supposed to take a breath

And people near me 

Who I called dear to me 

All seemed to subside 

Just a bag of bullshit stories at my side...

And god said, 

“Do you want to know me yet?”

I said, “I’m fine”

but I began to lose my mind. 

I held; tried to cling

To every fading worldly thing 

Like confetti – 

You can’t build a home on confetti. 

And finally, at the final straw 

I had everything I could have wanted in the world –

But loss kept coming,

and the train tracks kept drumming,

I cried, “Get me off this goddamn ride”

And god came back and stopped the train

I clambered out then in the pouring rain, 

And truth spoke,

“Leave the bag behind. 

All you are is not your mind 

Come with nothing and follow me

And we walked

And at that slow, slow pace.

I could suddenly see

The cosmos I had never touched

and the star grass I had never brushed 

I saw the moon again and it saw me

And I knew none of them would stay 

Neither would night when came the day

But I was here

And death seemed close and far 

And it was beautiful and intimate:

That we were nothing but an inch apart 

Truth held me in a big, big wave

As I opened then my hollow cave 

And let god pour right through my ribs

Between my lungs, right to my hips and

My feet felt the ground that seemed now strong 

And god said, “you know me”

I said, “I do”

“I am nothing but a piece of you”

Poem from, "From Dust" (book launching soon) Artwork by local Zimbabwean Artist, Phineas Chisango