In Manhattan, I learned a public kindness
was a triumph
over the push of money, the constrictions
of fear. If it occurred it came
from some deep
primal memory, almost entirely lost
Here, let me help you, then you me,
otherwise we’ll die.
Which is why I love the weather
in Minnesota, every winter kindness
linked
to obvious self-interest,
thus so many kindnesses
when you need them;
praise blizzards, praise the cold.
Kindness of any kind shames me,
makes me remember
what I haven’t done or been.
I met a woman this summer in Aspen
so kind
I kept testing her to see
where it would end. I thought: how easy
to be kind in Aspen,
no poverty or crime, each day
a cruise in the blond, expensive streets.
But I was proof
it wasn’t easy, there was an end
to her kindness and I found it;
I kept wanting
what she didn’t have
until she gave me what I deserved.
If the hearts of men
are merciless, as James Wright said,
then any kindness is water turned
to wine, it’s manna
in the new and populous desert.
The stranger in me knows
what strangers need
It might be better to turn us away.
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