Changing the World

When you are kind to others it not only changes you, it changes the world. ~ Harold Kushner

How easy it is to match mean
with mean. Vindication thaws
glacial resentment, freeing the heart
to high-five the wounded gut.
But mean, matched or original,
builds resentment, wounds other guts,
returns mean for mean from base folk.

Hard is matching mean with kind,
seeing as sick the hurtful, the catty.
Kind dissolves resentment, frees hearts
to soar above road kill, to rise to peace,
Kindness grows in the giver,
can sprout in the receiver, take root,
and grow, coming back in kind
to the kind, repeating the process
as benevolence prevails.