Walk as Though Your Feet Are Kissing the Earth
A poem by Ana Daksina
I read this poem yesterday and wanted to share it with you. It expresses so beautifully how I would like to live my life, to pay such deep attention and devotion to everything that passes my way. The poem was inspired by a line from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Peace in Every Step (1991): “Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”
What’s amazing is that Ana wrote this poem when she was experiencing homelessness To feel this way under those condition, or even to aspire to do so is truly heroic. I hope you are as inspired by her words as I am. Thank you Ana for allowing me to share this.
Walk as Though Your Feet are Kissing the Earth
Walk as though
Your feet
Are kissing the earth
Lift your eyes as if you are
Lost in wonder
At living on this beautiful world
Handle every possession
As though you may
Never see it again
Greet everyone you meet
As a long lost brother
And newly discovered teacher
See every fallen leaf
As an irreplaceable
Painting
Each individual flower
As priceless
Sculpture
Feel every feeling as though
You know you will never be
Privileged
To feel this exact
Same feeling
Ever again
Be
Here
Now
By Ana Daksina from Troubador of Verse
I’ve paired this poem with a painting by Matthew Wong, another artist that inspires me, who I will be writing more about in another newsletter soon.
Thank you for sharing this poem and painting, Deborah. For nearly a year, during lockdown (May 2020–April 2021), my wife and I volunteered at a local homeless shelter in downtown Portland. We went four days a week and worked either lunch or dinner shifts. The shelter itself is also a group home for men who are trying to get a fresh start in life. To live there, they have to be clean, and they have to help out in multiple ways. We got to know many of them, as well as several regulars who came for their meals. Some were desperately, and tragically, in need of a lot of help; others were just trying to survive; some escaped horrible abuse; many had terrible addictions; and some had sadly recently been evicted due to losing their job during the pandemic or bankrupt because of a serious health issue. What they all shared, however, was serious trauma. It was so sad, but every single person, even those with the most severe mental health issues, just wanted to be seen, heard, respected, and treated as a human being. After all, everybody on the streets of every city or town, regardless of mental health or addictions, is somebody's child or family member.
I feel I learned so much in that year and had deeper conversations with people in both the shelter and on the street than I have with many "friends."
The one thing I worry about is some of the dehumanizing language I hear about the homeless community that comes from both the right and left wings. We have seen dehumanization play out before with horrifying consequences. I also fear we are becoming so selfishly entrapped in our own tunnel-vision lives that we no longer have compassion and have become desensitized to those who need help. With fentanyl, it has only been exacerbated to the point where I sometimes don't even know if the person on the street is alive. That said, I also fear that we too easily enable with our political correctness rather than put systems in place to truly help others. Some people on the streets of Portland (and other cities; Portland is just where I live) are in such desperate need of help that politicians on both sides are ignoring or wanting to sweep under the carpet, and it simply isn't humane.
It's shocking that in the wealthiest nation to have ever existed in the history of the world, we don't take care of our fellow humans.