Living By Kindness

Strange things happen in the mind —
like the time I stopped under a streetlight
to write on an envelope a chance thought
furrowing my head —"we haven't all
killed each other yet"— and then went on
through the dark streets of my Idaho city
trudging coal dust and snow.

Next day at the lumber yard, I caught
a clerk glancing at me sideways.
Then I remembered the envelope
in my heart — pocket, its message
bold as a badge: "we haven't
all killed each other yet."

He was good to me.
Sliding a pine plank off the rack
so clean and sweet, so long, he said,
"You paid for an eight,
but all we got today is twelves."

Words have made nothing happen yet
except a free four feet of pine
and the cradle it made
and the child I held
under a light in the snow.