Rosemary Wahtola Trommer’s poem, Kindness, embodies the essence of the Spring season for me. I love the idea of planting seeds of kindness in the ground and allowing "a bit of beauty, a kind word,” to later emerge again, not knowing in who or where they may sprout in the world.
We touch each other, in kindness, each day, as we offer the seeds of our own gifts; a poem, a piece of art, a song of joy, a freshly baked loaf of bread, flowers from our garden. Our authentic, perfectly, imperfect lives grow in richness and depth reaching farther than we know.
Kindness
ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER
Consider the tulip, how it rises every spring out of the same soil,
which is, of course,
not at all the same soil,
but new.
How long ago
someone’s hands planted a bulb
and gave to this place
a living scrap of beauty.
Consider the six red petals,
the yellow at the center,
the soft green rubber of the stem,
how it bows to the world. How,
the longer we sit beside it,
the more we bow to it, too.
It is something like kindness:
someone plants
in someone else a bit of beauty—
a kind word,
perhaps, or a touch, the gift
of their time or their smile.
And years later, in that inner soil
that beauty emerges again,
pushing aside the dead leaves,
insisting on beauty,
a celebration of the one who planted it, the one who perceives it, and
the fertile place where it has grown.
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