When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.
If they say we should get together.
say Why?
It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.
When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.
The Art of Disappearing. ©2004 Naomi Shihab Nye. All Rights Reserved.
I am reposting this on facebook.
thank you very much for this gift.
I love this – read it somewhere in the last few months.
Such a great way to put it… nod briefly and become a cabbage… we so often want to be accepted, to be welcome, out there. We can forget to be welcome in here!
thanks for that Peter
hope you are well and gently opening to the new time and year.
ah p… this poem. such a treat to read it here – ‘walk around feeling like a leaf’- i think is an extraordinary way to be in life
This is what fame can do! Not that it isn’t a well-constructed poem.
For comparison though, there’s her earlier poem “Kindness”
(published in 1995)
The later poem may be practical advice for avoiding the downsides of fame, but I’m not sure most of us need to be so avoidant, just discerning. The two poems are worlds apart in depth, compassion and insight, at least to me.
Thanks again for bringing out something new.
I don’t see this poem as limited to the effects of fame. After my family was killed, I became highly selective about how I spent my time and with whom I shared myself. I know to some this poem seems very curmudgeonly, but lose your family and it’s hard not to realize that time is the stuff life is made of.
This is one of my favorites. I discovered it somehow (grace) when a person from the long distance past tracked me down via the internet and wanted to reconnect. That seemed like a nice idea, but after a few exchanges I realized he wasn’t really interested in connecting with me in a mutual exchange but rather had found an open heart he could then pour all his neediness and narcissism into. I tried to stay open a bit longer and then came to accept that in this case – and in a few other “friendships” – my compassion needed to be directed toward myself – caring for myself – my “project that would never be finished”. Thank you for the reminder, Peter.
‘O comments’ seems unusually frequent, but one is languishing here!
Or was !