Tag: love

Simple Acts of Kindness

Every Little Deed

For every little seed
carried by the wind
or bird on wing…
a new plant may spring.

Each little drop of water
from clouds descend,
flow into great rivers
where so much life depends.

Every little ray of sunshine
helps plants to grow strong
and with a little care
may bring fruit to bear…

Like each part in nature
so are we—
in doing a kind deed,
helping a living being in need;

As a kind word
or an action
to timely send…
can a broken heart mend.

Important is my life you see…
it is not such a small thing
to make a heart sing,
and to alter a destiny.

Great changes can be wrought
from little deeds brought;
humble creatures together change
the landscape of earth—
each act has worth.

Every note plays its part
to create the loveliest song…
so does nature intricately woven
in the fabric of this earth to which we belong.

As gentle showers
bring forth abundant flowers,
kind deeds can reign…
creating near a heaven’s domain.

~ Lora Hollings

“True beauty is born through our actions and aspirations and in the kindness we offer to others.”
~ Alek Wek

Simple Acts of Kindness

“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”
~ Coretta Scott King

Eugene man helping homeless people with free haircuts

After four drug overdoses and serving time behind bars, Lucas has found purpose in barbering. He’s now giving free haircuts to homeless people. He hopes that his haircuts will give the homeless, the self-esteem that they need to change their own lives. “Hopefully, it will give them the will to get a job or something,” he said.

Ashlee Wiese, a local defense attorney who has represented Lucas, said she has seen such a transformation first-hand.

“We had a woman who got her haircut, and it was a whole new life for her at that moment,” she said. “She just felt so
much better about who she was just because someone cared enough to help her feel better about the way she looked.”

D.C. restaurant feeds the poor and homeless every single day

After Kazi Mannan, owner of Sakina Halal Grill opened his restaurant in 2013, he decided homeless people eat for free.

“If someone says I need a free meal, OK,” Mannan said. He doesn’t ask questions and never judges anyone. His policy has remained the same for the last five years. If you’re hungry, poor or homeless, you eat for free. In 2018, he estimates they served over 16,000 free meals.”

An immigrant from a small village in Pakistan, when he arrived to the United States, he had less than $5 in his pocket. “Once upon a time, I was in a similar situation where I didn’t have enough money to eat. You pass by a restaurant but never able to go in. When you don’t have money, nobody is going to let you in,” he said.

Mannan is a person whose kind heart and positive energy vibrates throughout his restaurant. “I don’t want any donation but if you’re coming in to eat, that’s your support of helping a community restaurant that is offering kindness and love others,” Mannan said. “I’m trying to worship our Creator through food.”

References

  1. Christian Hill, “Eugene man helping homeless people with free haircuts,” AP, AP NEWS, 2018, https://www.apnews.com/27fea8cabf474a30b6afe9ded05b638c, (accessed 19 April 2019).
  2. Caroline Patrickis, D.C. restaurant feeds the poor and homeless every single day WJLA, ABC7, 2019, https://wjla.com/news/local/dc-restaurant-feeds-the-poor and-homeless-every-single-day, (accessed 19 April 2019).
Students helping each other

Insight from this poem

This poem is a gentle meditation on the power of small actions and their quiet ability to shape the world. By weaving together images of nature—seeds, rain, sunshine, rivers, flowers—with human kindness, the poem draws a beautiful parallel between the natural world and human responsibility. It reminds us that growth is rarely dramatic or instant; instead, it happens through patience, care, and consistency. Just as tiny drops of water form great rivers, small acts of compassion accumulate into meaningful change. The poem also affirms personal worth, emphasizing that no life or deed is insignificant. Every word spoken kindly, every helping hand, every compassionate choice becomes part of a greater harmony. The message is deeply hopeful: transformation doesn’t require grand gestures—only faithfulness in small ones. In this way, the poem becomes both a reflection and a call to live gently, intentionally, and lovingly within the shared fabric of creation.

Table of contents

The Gift of Love

The Power of Love In Helping Us To Improve Our Lives

These poems are about the power of love in changing our lives for the better by encouraging us to follow our hearts and dreams in guiding us to find our unique destiny. Love also enables us to reach our full human potential by cultivating compassion for all the living beings on our great planet thus expanding our consciousness and appreciating the true miracle that all life is.

Mother and Child by Chris O’Malley

Today I Say A Prayer For The Gift of Love

Today, I see a lovely flower
and look at it as if for the first time.
I see how beautiful is my child
and thank God for the most precious gift
which he has given me.
I look at her soft, radiant eyes and
her sweet little face;
I feel her little body wrapped in my arms…
so grateful to have her to love and to hold.
Let me realize just how valuable is today…
to explore my talents,
no matter how they may be judged;
free me from restraint to tell those that I love,
to fully experience the breadth
of my humanity…
not to cower in a corner-
always afraid to reach out
or speak what I believe to be true.
Awaken my spirituality,
let me experience what it is like
to stand on a mountain top-
filled with a moment of eternity,
to feel part of what was before…
now… and will be.
Let something of me remain after I’m gone-
to reveal that I lived and had something to say.
Give me insight to see before I act
so as not to cause another pain or injury.
Let me have empathy for all sentient beings…
to realize there’s a sanctity about all life,
and let not money or power corrupt my soul…
help me today to stop excusing my limitations
by accepting the challenge to
change and become a better person.

~ Lora Hollings

“I Choose Love”
~ Shawn Gallaway

This is a video which shows how we can choose to live our lives with love and create a more peaceful world uniting us all as one people who can tackle important challenges of the future such as climate change, saving our wildlife, and our planet. We have the choice to create a brighter tomorrow for our children and future generations- a world where there’s no place for hatred or violence toward any living being. A world where we all learn to respect each other for the special gifts that we have and where all people have a chance to contribute these gifts and lead rewarding lives.

To Feel The Miracle of Love

Surely This Must Be Heaven

Surely this must be heaven…
when I can look up into the treetops
and see the light rays streaming
through gently swaying leaves.
Surely this must be heaven…
when you hold me in your arms
with such tenderness,
and I hear the beating of your heart
so close to mine.
Surely this must be heaven…
when my little dog
with his calming presence
helps to relieve the burden of my worries
and loves me so devotedly.
Surely this must be heaven,
when I feel my child
in the grasp of an embrace…
and I thank God
for the precious gift of life-
to feel the miracle of love.

~ Lora Hollings

Let’s be Friends –
Dolphin and Dog Become True Friends

Animals also show an amazing capacity to form deep bonds of affection with each other even with members from another species enriching their lives as well. We see in this video of a true friendship between a dolphin and a dog that these animals’ affection for each other not only parallels our own but that they have the capacity for empathy or the ability to understand and share the feelings of others too. Thus we cannot limit the capacity to feel love only to human beings.

Cute Cat Befriends Dolphins –
We Don’t Have To Be Alike to Be Friends

Cat befriends dolphins in this charming video which shows that animals, once again, can develop bonds of friendship with each other even crossing the boundaries between species. Maybe animals can teach us to be more tolerant of our differences, and instead connect with others on a deeper, more spiritual level.

Live your Life With Love and Treasure the Beauty of the Moment

Quotes About Life and Love

“The love we give away is the only love we keep.”
-Elbert Hubbard

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
-Siddhartha Buddha

Love does not dominate. It cultivates.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

“Compassion is the chief law of human existence.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt and dance like no one is watching.”-Randall G. Leighton

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”
-Ashley Smith

“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.”
-James Dean

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”
-Flora Whittemore

“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”
-Oscar Wilde

“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”
-Maria Robinson

Looking back, I have this to regret: that too often when I loved, I did not say so.
-David Grayson

Love does not dominate. It cultivates.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Love does not die easily. It is a living thing. It thrives in the face of all life’s hazards, save one: neglect.
-James Bryden

Insights About These Poems

These two poems reveal a deeply grounded spirituality that is not found in abstraction, but in presence, love, and conscious living. Rather than seeking heaven or holiness as distant ideals, the poems suggest that sacredness exists in ordinary moments—when attention, gratitude, and empathy are fully engaged.

Today I Say a Prayer for the Gift of Love is an inward-looking invocation, a moral and spiritual reckoning. It recognizes love as both a gift and a responsibility. The speaker asks not only to feel gratitude for a child, but to live more truthfully, courageously, and compassionately. There is a call to self-awareness: to act with foresight, to avoid causing harm, to resist corruption by power or fear, and to grow beyond self-imposed limitations. Love here becomes transformative—it demands integrity, empathy for all life, and a willingness to leave something meaningful behind.

Surely This Must Be Heaven offers the lived fulfillment of that prayer. Heaven is not elsewhere; it is found in sensory and emotional immediacy—sunlight through leaves, a tender embrace, the quiet devotion of a dog, the warmth of a child held close. These moments affirm that love is the miracle itself, not a reward deferred.

Together, the poems suggest that heaven is created through awareness and care. When we slow down, cherish connection, and choose kindness, life reveals its sacred dimension. Love, when fully seen and honored, becomes both the path and the destination.

Additional Poems by Lora Hollings

In the simple delight of The Ladybug Poem, we are reminded that awareness often begins with noticing the smallest details. That same awareness unfolds through the quiet optimism of A New Day Has Come and the gentle reflection found in The Gift of Love, where love reveals itself in everyday moments. It deepens further in Inspiring Poems About Daughters and the lasting wisdom shared in Mothers Guide Us Throughout Life, each emphasizing guidance, presence, and care. Together, these reflections naturally lead to The Magic of Being, where these themes converge into a meditation on living with intention, gratitude, and heart.

Table of contents

A Tribute to Nature

Poem For A Little Deer

He was born on a warm spring day in April,
the flowers were just starting to bloom;
the air was filled with a sweet scent,
the birds in a chorus sang
as if to herald a precious event.

Winter was now a forgotten dream
and its blanket of white
had melted away,
to uncover the soft
new growth of green…

And down from the sky
came a golden ray
which warmed the ground
where the little fawn lay
against the warmth of his mother.

He was soft-eyed and brown
with little spots of white,
and when he tried to stand up
he wobbled and fell,
but his mother was soon there—
everything was now alright.

How beautiful he was,
the animals appeared to say…
they stopped in their tracks midway;
the leaves seemed to nod in assent
as they would sway.

All the animals
hoped that his mother would always be there
to care for this gentle fawn so fair;
whenever she would stir,
he would frantically look for her…

But when she was in sight
they would soon reunite;
she would gently muzzle
the little deer as he would cuddle—
everything was again alright.

He loved this place—
the gentle breeze,
the smell of the pine trees,
their resinous sap,
the feel of the tender grass beneath
his hooves…
and the warm sun on his back.

When his mother was near,
the little deer could be seen
exploring the forest
where life abounds;
his ears keen
to listen to all the sounds.

He would run
with all of his might;
he was swift
as the wind!
How he loved the gift
of life.

~ Lora Hollings

Insight from this poem

This poem captures the quiet miracle of birth and the sacred tenderness of new life through the image of a newborn fawn and his devoted mother. Nature is not just a backdrop here—it is an active witness, participating in the moment through birdsong, sunlight, flowers, and gentle breezes. The poem reflects innocence, safety, and belonging, portraying the forest as a nurturing sanctuary where love and protection are instinctive and constant. The mother’s presence becomes a symbol of security and trust, showing how love teaches courage, exploration, and confidence. As the fawn grows bolder, the poem reveals a deeper truth: that life is both fragile and resilient, held together by care, connection, and wonder. Ultimately, the poem celebrates life as a gift—pure, joyful, and sacred—reminding us that tenderness, protection, and love are the foundations upon which all living beings learn to thrive.

Inspiring Poems About Daughters

Creating A Better World for All Children?

These poems are a tribute to not only my daughter but to the children of the world. I hope that these inspiring poems about daughters will resonate with readers everywhere. They honor children for their pureness of heart, honesty, imagination, and their inquisitive minds which give them such an amazing capacity to learn. We must endeavor to build a more loving and just world where all children can grow up in a safe environment and not be exploited or abused, and have the opportunity to develop their unique gifts and grow up to live good lives.

The Patter of Little Feet

I still hear the patter
of your little feet
running down the hall,

“mama, mama,”
you would call,
arms outstretched for me—

to hold you
as you were frightened
by the loud claps of thunder.

And I would give you
a warm embrace.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of…
this will pass,
and the sun will
soon come out.”

Then I placed you on my lap
in a big rocking chair,
and I would read you a story.

The thunder suddenly becoming much quieter—
only the patter of raindrops
falling on the windows
could now be heard.

“Look, it’s the rain,
and it makes seeds grow.
Remember the little seed
you planted yesterday?”

And then I would take
your little hands
and fold them inside of mine,
showing you how a seed
grows into a lovely flower.

And often times,
when we looked out the window again,
the sun was there,
and a beautiful rainbow
would appear in the sky.

You would take your crayons out
and draw the rainbow and the sun—
then you and I, holding hands,
with such happy, smiling faces.

Now you’ve grown
into a radiant flower,
spreading beauty and joy
wherever you go…

a lovely rainbow of color
follows you in your path
as you share your
grace and gifts with others.

And whenever I hear
the patter of rain
falling against the window,

I hear the patter
of little feet
against the floor…

and hear your sweet voice calling
as if it were only yesterday—

and I still feel
the softness and warmth
of your little body
as I would hold you in my arms…

forever,
my little flower.

~ Lora Hollings

Just Like Thumbelina

I remember the tenderness
of your little hands,

and the scent of your sweet, soft curls
under my chin;

with your little feet folded beneath you on my lap,
I would read your favorite story—
Thumbelina.

After I read the story,
you would use your little hands
to imitate Thumbelina
flying on her swallow;

and seeing others who needed help,
you would signal with your hand
that you were flying down
to rescue them—

a little bird with a broken wing,
a puppy or kitten in trouble,
or a small child who looked lost.

You would say,
“They’re all right now, Mom,
safe from harm.”

And then we would
sing your favorite song,

and you would dance,
twirling round and round,
making graceful gestures with your arms.

*“Thumbelina, Thumbelina, tiny little thing,
Thumbelina dance, Thumbelina sing.
Thumbelina, what’s the difference if you’re very small?
When your heart is full of love,
you’re nine feet tall!”

Then all the little animals who were broken,
and all the ones who were lost and needed help,
would become the names of your
toys in your room,
and I would
help you mend their injuries.

Now I see you as a grown woman,
using your incredible gifts of mind
and loving heart—

rescuing those who are injured or lost,
restoring their hope,
and the possibility to see themselves,
once again,
in the promise of a new day.

~ Lora Hollings

My Snow Angel

When you were a little girl,
I remember dressing you
in a lavender snowsuit,
with a heart on its jacket,
and little red boots
so that you could go outside to play.

Dazzled by this new wintry world,
you would jump in the soft white drifts
and reach for icicles that dangled
from branches of trees—
your eyes full of wonder and delight.

Lying in the snow,
you would make snow angels
as I had taught you,
so many pretty ones…
the little imprint of your body
seemed to be
a perfect size for an angel.

A little trail of footprints
could be seen across the yard
as you loved to hear your boots make
crunching sounds in the snow.

Laughing excitedly,
you would catch snowflakes
falling from the sky
with your red mittens,
and marvel at their delicate form.

How you loved discovering
new things about the world—
as you continue to do today,
often times even forging a new path,
and leaving new footprints
for others to follow.

~ Lora Hollings

Insights About These Poems

The three poems about daughters reflect a profound emotional landscape where love, memory, growth, and transformation intertwine. At their heart is a devotion that moves beyond simple affection into deep spiritual presence and personal witnessing. Each poem explores a different facet of the parent–child relationship, but together they map a journey: from the innocence of early years, through shared imagination and wonder, to the adult fulfillment of gifts once nurtured in childhood.

In Just Like Thumbelina, the daughter’s playful imitation of Thumbelina becomes symbolic of a heart that sees need and responds with love. Her imaginative rescue missions—saving birds, puppies, and lost children—reveal an innate compassion that transcends physical stature. What begins as childlike play becomes metaphor for a life lived with empathy and purpose. The poem’s voice is one of pride and reflection, seeing the seeds of a compassionate adult in the early gestures of a child.

My Snow Angel carries this theme into the sensory world of discovery—snow, cold, footprints, snowflakes—where the child’s simple joy reflects the wonder of engagement with the world. It celebrates curiosity, presence, and the footprints we leave behind—literal and metaphorical—suggesting that wonder can become legacy.

Across both, the bond between parent and child functions as something sacred, a space where the heart learns to see, to marvel, and to love without reservation. In witnessing the daughter’s wonder and compassion, the speaker also rediscovers beauty, hope, and continuity.

Collectively, these poems affirm that daughters are more than cherished beloveds: they are teachers, mirrors of love’s potential, and living embodiments of compassion’s promise. They remind us that the sacred often lives in the humble moments of shared play, imagination, and care.

Additional Poems by Lora Hollings

The quiet wonder of The Ladybug Poem reminds us how meaning often arrives in small, unexpected ways—a theme that continues in A New Day Has Come and the tender reflection of The Gift of Love. These moments of awareness and gratitude deepen through Inspiring Poems About Daughters and the enduring guidance shared in Mothers Guide Us Throughout Life, where love becomes both lesson and legacy. Together, these reflections gently point toward The Magic of Being, a cornerstone piece that gathers these threads into a single truth: life’s deepest beauty is found in presence, connection, and simply being.

Table of contents