“Be Kind”

Charles Bukowski by Graziano Origa 2008 CC BY-SA 3.0

As I do every spring/summer, I’ve been up to my elbows planning next year’s homeschooling. It’s great fun, and I always put a lot of work into it. The more planning I can do during the summer, the smoother our experience during the school year. And since my daughter is beginning 9th grade next year, I’m also looking ahead to the entirety of high school for her.

Lately, I’ve been focusing on planning Literature. You know, novels, plays, poetry. I know plenty about what novels and plays to have us work on, but I had to read a lot of poetry to get a feel for what kind of poems certain poets have written. I stumbled across some real gems (and some that are pretty hard to read and understand), but this is my favorite one, completely applicable to today.

Charles Bukowski‘s “Be Kind”:

we are always asked
to understand the other person’s
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives

is.

I can’t figure out what year it was written, but it’s so applicable to the internet today, and he died in 1994, so it’s an interesting perspective.

Go out and discover some poetry that speaks to you, too. Normally, poetry isn’t something I get into, so this was a real find.