Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
Nye wrote this poem not long after she and her husband were robbed on a bus during their honeymoon in Colombia, left with nothing but each other and the unexpected decency of a stranger. That loss is the hinge of the poem: only once the future she had planned dissolved did she see kindness as the thing actually holding her up. She isn't describing detachment but a steadier kind of attention, the ground that's still there once expectation falls away. It's a useful teaching for a morning before anything has gone wrong yet, a reminder of where to look when it does.
Reflection
Nye suggests that loss is often the moment real kindness begins. What do I already have today that no setback could take away?