Here There Is No Antidote for Longing

May 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood, in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 8.

Today’s poem is about the need to give children space.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Here there is no antidote for longing.

A love like this admits no more or less.

Perhaps that is the price of happiness.

Perhaps love is itself a kind of yearning.

Yet mothers need to temper their desiring,

Making room for those whom they would bless,

On whom they lay the burden of success,

The mirror in which they would see their dancing.

Here one cannot choose to be too choosy.

Each child is a separate universe

Regarding one’s sweet dreams with its own eyes

‘Mid the ancient battleground called love.

So must mothers do their chosen duty,

Deep in love for better or for worse,

And easy in their minds, if they are wise,

Yet with hopes no wisdom can remove.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/heret6.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood.

May 2: Mothers Are What Make the Boo-Boos Better

May 3: Hard by Happiness Is Always Pain

May 4: Aunts Are like a Small, Secluded Garden

May 5: Maybe There’s a Sorrow That You Hide

May 6: Here There Is No Antidote for Longing