Poem for a Monday

Small Kindnesses, by Danusha Lameris

I've been thinking about how, when you walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs  

to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"  

when someone sneezes, a leftover   

from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die" we are saying.   

And sometimes, when you spill lemons   

from your grocery bag, someone will help you   

pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.    

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,   

and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile    

at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress   

to call us honey when she sets down a bowl of clam chowder,    

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.   

We have so little of each other, now. So far    

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.   

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these    

fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,    

have my seat," "Go ahead -- you first," "I like your hat."