Where does kindness come from?
These five friends have enjoyed each other’s company for the last several days,
one always having the suggestions,
one always with something to say,
one always willing to try something,
one always curious,
and one always quiet.
Whether it was the flan shared as if made by her own two hands
or the constant invitation 
that every word represented,
this table embodied the world I always imagined
as a young, young child.
The end of the last millennium prepared all of us for a future
of gleaming cities carved
from the resin of paradise;
abundance sheltered behind spaces we had not yet imagined,
and people who were beautiful because they were happy
gathered in a world as wild as antiquity
just outside every transtechnological window.
Yet as I grow older in this place refilled with disappointments,
I no longer hope for sleek bannisters of glass and rhodium
or for floating vehicles and dwellings.
I hope instead to see 
my colleague feeding the unhoused
as if the meal she shared was made by her own two hands.
If I saw such an experience every day or even every week,
I would know that the rest of that future
would be here soon enough.