Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Kindness” opens with the following lines:
…..When deeds splay before us
precious as gold & unused chances
stripped from the whine bone,
we know the moment kindheartedness
walks in.
The five lines evoke a world, one in which there is an “us,” a “we.” This we—perhaps two people, perhaps a large number of people—examines deeds and unused chances, almost appearing as riches displayed on velvet cloth or constellations on a clear, blue-black night. In this examination, something reveals itself: “the moment kindheartedness / walks in.”
The moment seems revelatory, a surprise, a realization to be received rather than summoned. This sensation relies on the words, as well as the shape of the poem; not all of Komunyakaa’s poems begin with an indented line. What, then, is the effect and the purpose of the indentation? To me, it suggests the way favor, or kindheartedness, enters. It comes in between and perhaps even through the deeds “precious as gold” and the “unused chances / stripped from the whine bone.”
Then, too, the speaker’s address to the “you” whose “knowing gaze enters a room / & opens the day, / saying we were made for fun.” The gaze cracks open the world, allowing in a little light, a little reprieve, while at the same time suggesting “we” were made for more than survival. “Even the bedazzled brute knows,” says the speaker, “when sunlight falls through leaves / across honed knives on the table.”
A beauty exists in that sunlight falling through leaves, a kindness. Yet, the speaker continually reveals a tension within, or at least resistant to, that beauty and kindness. The “honed knives,” for instance, suggest violence. And, of course, the “blood” mentioned earlier in the poem:
Though blood
first shaped us on the climbing wheel,
the human mind lit by the savanna’s
ice star & thistle rose…
Later, the speaker asks, “What do we need to measure / every held breath & unkind leap year?”
The tension works for the poem; the speaker is not seeking an easy resolution, a tidy answer that comforts the listener. No, the speaker unfolds the reality that violence and kindness can, and often do, coexist. As that occurs, the speaker asks unsettling questions, such as this one:
If we can see it [the sunlight] push shadows
aside, growing closer, are we less
broken?
The speaker never answers the question, at least not explicitly, but the possibility of hope, of comfort—kindheartedness—remains. At the conclusion of the poem, the speaker says:
Sometimes a sober voice is enough
to calm the waters & drive away
the false witnesses, saying, Look,
here are the broken treaties Beauty
brought to us earthbound sentinels.
Komunyakaa could be alluding to several things with the calming of waters, but for me it recalls Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5). The man longs to be healed, but he never reaches the stirred waters in time. Jesus sees him and asks, “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus’ voice could be read as that sober voice that calms the waters and drives away the false witnesses. (Komunyakaa likely didn’t intend my particular reading of his poem; as far as I am aware, Komunyakaa is not a Christian. But poems layer imagery, and what the reader unearths may differ from the poet’s vision.)
At the same time, the combination of “broken treaties” and “Beauty” reminds me of kintsugi, the Japanese art form in which broken pottery is mended and made new with a gold lacquer. The treaties may be broken, and so may be the “we,” yet the treaties are brought by Beauty and contain beauty. (Then again, the final lines of this poem are somewhat unclear. Is it the sober voice that says “Look, / here are the broken treaties Beauty / brought to us earthbound sentinels” or the “false witnesses”? The poem is open to interpretation at this point, which may be Komunyakaa’s intention.)
The final two words, “earthbound sentinels,” both describe the “we” of this poem and conjure their duty. Sentinels keep watch, remain alert through the long hours. And isn’t that what this “we” does? They remain attentive, watching for “the moment kindheartedness / walks in.”