In my best and worst moments, poetry has been my faithful companion. From the early years of children’s rhymes into the war poets and Ted Hughes, poetry keeps on opening doors. It’s soul music. It never dates and constantly evaluates.

This poem which I read as I was packing up and leaving my home in France, reminds us of the importance of kindness. Kindness in a crazy and chaotic world, is the antidote to disconnection and loneliness.

Poetry is for speaking. Poetry is for sharing. Poetry empowers. Poetry is medicine. Let’s praise it for the beautiful tool of sense making it affords us. In the light and the dark and the joy and the sadness. Its universal harmonic is a treasured gift.