How to Practice Extreme Radical Kindness in Ten Specific Situations

 How to Practice Extreme Radical Kindness In Ten Specific Situations 

To tiny ants on the kitchen counter: say, I’m sorry

To the human who made fun of the way you led the meeting: 

                            upon recalling this moment, relax 

every facial muscle, stare blankly into the distance,

in this case, New Jersey, and hold

To fellow museum visitors waiting for you to vacate 

the chair in the Whitney where you just sat 

to watch the sun drop 

behind New Jersey:

                            hold, watch waves 

splash against Manhattan, find the bicyclist at the furthest edge of the pier, 

oh and there a runner, then the rose-yellow sky letting itself go to gray, 

be your mass, 

let them stand in their mass

To your lungs with a slight tickle in some corridor hovering above your heart:

                            water, water, water

To the person (might be the same person who made fun of you) 

who asks for grace after they were passive aggressive:

                            say you will accept cash 

($10 per minute of grace)

To grace wanting to be understood as forgiveness: 

                            set out a bowl of cold oatmeal

To grace asking on behalf of itself for more of itself: 

                            a spinning wheel and wool

To the person who says “I am so frustrated with you”: 

                            a sash of silk with the words I AM ON ELEVEN AND 

painted by hand    

To readers, wanting what they want : 

                            say, readers, here are my lungs (butterflies), 

my eyelashes at attention, 

my rough beastness pulling itself 

across thread-pulled terry cloth to you

To tiny ants, oh if they could give you a second chance:

                            give them the grooves of the honey bottle cap until you wash it, 

the whole sink of overnight dishes, 

the entire hidden backside of your kitchen situation, 

every inch of the world beyond.