["Imbolc" by S.R. Harrell, 2025]
Today is Imbolc, a pagan holiday which celebrates, not Spring per se, but rather, the promise of Spring. It is also the sacred day of Brigid the Bright, the Celtic Goddess of (among other things) poetry.
The Imbolc Cyberspace Poetry Slam has been celebrated for quite a few years now by various pagans around the blogosphere. On February 1st (Imbolc Eve) or February 2nd (Imbolc Day), people post a favourite poem written by themselves or by another poet so that, collectively, an internet web of poetry is woven to honour Brigid.
This year I am posting a poem by Danusha Laméris, an accomplished and award-winning American poet and essayist, whose website is here. In a time of great anger, uncertainty, and cruelty, we need to keep sight of the importance of kindness, consideration, and empathy. Her poem Small Kindnesses shows the true value of these little everyday interactions. I first found this poem a couple of years ago on blogging buddy Liz Hinds' Finding Life Hard? blog, so thank you for that, Liz!
Small Kindnesses
by Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, 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 else 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 the 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.”
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