Haiku My Heart ~ Kindness

OCTOBER 13, 2017

**Small acts of kindnes_s_**
**makes strangers into kin and**
**helps us find our way**

\*\*\*\*\*

 Over 100 years ago, horticulturist Luther Burbank said that Sonoma County was,
_"the chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned."_

I awoke this past Sunday night to the thick smell of smoke and the sound of explosions.
My beautiful city and surrounding countryside was going up in a firestorm,
fueled by unprecedented gale winds.

Hundreds of people are missing.
Entire neighborhoods and communities are decimated.
Thousands are without homes, many of them friends and family.
Today as I write, it is most likely that I will not be evacuated
even though the fires continue to rage out of control
around me and with little to no containment.

And I am so aware of those right now
who are still fleeing for their very lives,
or coming to the reality that their lives are changed forever
by unspeakable loss.

Yet... everywhere I go, every note I receive, every person I interact with,
there are acts of kindness, compassion,
and people doing whatever they can to make a difference.

Shakespear said, _"one touch of nature makes the whole world kin."_

We are touched.

We are all kin.

\*\*\*\*\*

 For more Friday haiku my heart
please visit Rebecca and other poets
at [recuerda mi corazon](http://corazon.typepad.com/)

Former Petaluma Argus Editor E.S. Lippitt said in the 1800s, "In all my wanderings upon this earth I had never before traversed so Eden-like a vale as that between Santa Rosa and Mark West. It was nature's own park. Wild oats, clover and other indegenous grasses intermingled with a profusion of widlflowers of every shade and hue bedecked the broad expanse of plains..."

This quote is dedicated to my dear friends who lost their home Sunday night,
where I had had dinner just two nights before...
looking out to the glory of the Mark West area into Santa Rosa.