When Giving is All We Have

“We give,” the speaker declares in Line 3, “because giving has changed us.” Although Wisdom Literature can seem sentimental or clichéd in ways that the poem acknowledges when it describes its message as “old, the plot worn and the pages too” (Line 11), Rios refuses to curb his idealism. We continue to read the story of giving—a cornerstone theme of all cultures and civilizations—“over and again” (Line 12) because we realize that when we give to each other in real life, we “have been better for it” (Line 5). 

The poem does not offer specificity or elaborate on the kinds of selfless service that encompass compassionate outreach. To inventory actual acts of giving would narrow the reach of the poem. Instead, the poem argues that the scale of the gestures of service to others is irrelevant and that what matters more is the universality of the desire to give: It’s something innate to the natural world as exemplified by the rivers of the epigraph, and it comes from people both in response to and despite the lack of being the recipient of generosity. The smallest gestures, the speaker observes, are “big” (Line 8)—grand in impact and emotional depth. They are also reciprocal, “Mine to yours, yours to mine” (Line 12): Kindness generates kindness, in a cycle that has the potential to make us all “better.