What. Even.
This landed between the eyes in a sea of loss.
KINDNESS
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
— Naomi Shihab Nye
"The Babushkas of Chernobyl" is the story of three unlikely heroines who live in Chernobyl's "Zone of Alienation" or "Dead Zone." For more than 29 years they have survived - even thrived - on some of the most contaminated land on Earth. Winner Special Jury Award - Los Angeles Film Festival Winner Best Documentary - Santa Fe Film Festival Winner Best Editing & Special Jury Honor Award - Woodstock Film Festival Official Selection - Doc NYC, Seattle International Film Festival and many more! www.thebabushkasofchernobyl.com
A man passes a baby through the fence at the Serbiz/Hungary border in Röszke, Hungary, on August 28, 2015. This photograph won both the World Press Photo of the Year award as well as first place in the Spot News singles category. (Warren Richardson)
Visit the full article here for more info on this powerful image, and to see winning entries in all categories.
Title
Operating a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville, woman is working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber, Tennessee
Creator
Palmer, Alfred T., photographer
Date Created/Published
February 1943
Repository
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Collections
Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs