The Bells Ring Not for Just These Two

July 1, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is weddings.

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

A wedding poem about how wedding bells ring for everyone:

The bells ring not for just these two

Who will be joined in love today.

They also ring for me and you.

And not just for the families who

Now celebrate, as well they may.

The bells ring not for just these, too.

And not just those who know or knew

These families well, who came their way.

They also ring for me and you.

And not just those who came to view

The bride, the groom, the whole array.

The bells ring not for just these, too.

And not just those whose love is true,

Or those who would their doubts allay.

They also ring for me and you.

For all are joined in love, and do

Rejoice to hear the sweet bells play!

The bells ring not for just these two.

They also ring for me and you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thebel.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

6/29: A Set of Wedding Vows

6/30: I Do Not See You Often with My Eyes

7/1: The Bells Ring Not for Just These Two

I Do Not See You Often with My Eyes

June 30, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is weddings.

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

A wedding poem from a friend from far away:

I do not see you often with my eyes,

But often you are with me in my heart.

We rarely speak, but there are deeper ties

That keep us close while we must be apart.

Friendships don't depend on sights and sounds,

But on the mysteries of need and grace.

You're with me always, unrestrained by bounds,

In some sweet field more permanent than place.

And so your marriage is a widespread glory,

Shining on a world of more than two.

All the characters in your life story

Share the happiness that's come to you.

No love but must with all love intertwine:

The joy between you two is also mine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/idono4.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

6/29: A Set of Wedding Vows

6/30: I Do Not See You Often with My Eyes

Wedding Vows2

June 29, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is weddings.

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

A set of wedding vows:

BRIDE: I vow to love you all my life,

In sickness and in health,

And share your journey through this world

In either want or wealth.

I vow to give myself to you,

To trust you with my life,

To be your source of happiness

As lover and as wife.

GROOM: I vow to give you all my love,

To be your lasting friend,

To care for you and comfort you

Till time and trouble end.

I vow to share your happiness

And sorrow, joy and tears,

And be for you the one true thing

That lasts through all your years.

BOTH: These vows we make not knowing what

Good times or ill may come,

But knowing well what we both want:

A joyful, loving home.

These vows we make of our free will

Before you all, that we

Might know the grace that comes to those

Who would long loving be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/wedvo2.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

6/29: A Set of Wedding Vows

Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

June 28, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is weddings.

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

A wedding poem about the rewards and complications of gifts of love:

Gifts are not so simply for the taking.

A gift of love comes freighted with a soul.

Blessed are those who take the offer whole,

Rewarded with a life well worth embracing.

Intimacy's a gift requiring reshaping

Each to play a symbiotic role,

Life exchanging, changing lead to gold,

A mystic one of two now in the making.

Now one knows the other is for certain,

Dependent without fears, without regrets;

Knows that someone sees one as a gift;

Embraces the wizard hid behind the curtain;

Needs to be needed, for what one gives one gets;

Needs to need, for needless one might drift

Alone as passion rises and then sets.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/giftsa.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

June 27, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is weddings.

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

A wedding poem about freely choosing to constrain oneself through marriage:

I never thought I ever would get married.

I wanted no restraint upon my will.

But like the wind I wanted to be carried

Wherever wish might take me, yearning still.

And then I fell in love with you, and found

A rock upon which I might build a home,

A place both for and to which I was bound,

So bountiful I had no need to roam.

Freedom cannot be except by choosing,

And choice, if choice it be, of need constrains.

And joy, once had, becomes, for fear of losing,

A horse one rides with firm grip on the reins.

Thus my choice to love you as your wife

Is freely made, yet made for all my life.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ineve5.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

June 26, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is weddings.

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

A wedding poem for a couple who met through email:

We met as merely words upon a screen,

Disembodied souls who found a mate

Through mind alone, and unsuspected yearning.

We fell in love the best way, sight unseen,

Pure hunger neither feast nor flesh could sate,

Two hidden flames fair fed by phrases burning.

Most find their way by sight into the heart,

Loving first what must most quickly change

And only then what will the years endure.

We did the opposite, though not by art,

Taking steps that we did not arrange

Along a path both passionate and sure.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/wemet3.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

June 25, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is weddings.

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

A wedding poem that contains a wedding vow:

A vow is both a promise and a sign

That I am sure enough that this is true

To say it publicly, not just to you,

But to all those whose lives we here combine.

And so I vow to love you all my life,

To give you joy, for that is joy to me,

To be for you what I would have you be:

Each a home for each as man and wife.

I vow to give myself to that one self

Engendered by our mystical embrace,

And to nurture it through love and will.

For only thus we cross the inner gulf

That lies between our consciousness and grace,

Blessed by love, that makes good of all ill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/avowis.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

Graduation's on a Mountaintop

June 24, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A graduation poem about mixed hope and fear for the future:

Graduation's on a mountaintop.

Rarely does one get a better view.

All that is in front of one is new,

Dramatic vistas that don't seem to stop.

Underneath, perhaps, there is some fear

As more familiar landscapes fall away.

The price of moving on is just that gray

Intensity that grips as changes near.

One does, however, feel the moment's grace:

Now one should one’s sweet success embrace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/grad.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

6/19: Free at Last! Our Childhood Is Over

6/20: Hail to the Graduate

6/21: To My Sister on her Graduation

6/22: To Give as You Have Given Takes a Love

6/23: Graduation Is a Time

6/24: Graduation’s on a Mountaintop

Graduation Is a Time

June 23, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A graduation poem from parents to their child:

Graduation is a time

For feeling very proud,

For thinking lots of lovely thoughts

And saying them out loud.

It's a time for feeling love

About to overflow,

And just before it leaps its banks,

To let the loved one know.

And so we’re very proud of you

For being who you are,

For making something of yourself,

For making it this far.

We’re proud because we are a part

Of everything you do.

This time's the time to say how much

Love we have for you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/grad4.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

6/19: Free at Last! Our Childhood Is Over

6/20: Hail to the Graduate

6/21: To My Sister on her Graduation

6/22: To Give as You Have Given Takes a Love

6/23: Graduation Is a Time

To Give as You Have Given Takes a Love

June 22, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A graduation and thank-you poem to a teacher:

To give as you have given takes a love

Hallowed by a special kind of grace.

After all, the lives we will embrace,

Now are shaped by those that our hearts move.

Kids need the kind of leader you have been.

Your efforts don't come close to the real sum:

On your life we build what we become,

Undertaking only what we've seen.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/togive.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

6/19: Free at Last! Our Childhood Is Over

6/20: Hail to the Graduate

6/21: To My Sister on her Graduation

6/22: To Give as You Have Given Takes a Love

To My Sister on Her Graduation

June 21, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A graduation poem from a younger sister or brother to an older sister:

To my sister on her graduation:

Old memories are a movie starring you.

Much of me is shaped by our relation,

Years and years of watching what you do.

So like two trees alone upon a meadow,

Interplaying with the rain and sun,

Shaped by the turning earth through light and shadow,

The growth of two becomes the growth of one.

Even as you enter your new life,

Remember how we shared the morning light.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/tomysi.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

6/19: Free at Last! Our Childhood Is Over

6/20: Hail to the Graduate

6/21: To My Sister on her Graduation

Hail to the Graduate

June 20, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A graduation poem from sister to brother:

Hail to the graduate!

Looking great and feeling fit!

Oh, so proud and full of it!

This day belongs to you.

You've been a lovely friend and brother.

In fact, I wouldn't have another.

In fact, I can't -- just ask our mother.

But better? There are few.

So go along and have some fun,

Learn some new things on the run,

And should you meet some special one,

Keep me in your heart, too.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hailto.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

6/19: Free at Last! Our Childhood Is Over

6/20: Hail to the Graduate

Free at Last! Our Childhood Is Over

June 19, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A graduation poem anticipating memories:

Free at last! Our childhood is over!

Now we can look back with tearful eyes

And see ourselves through sentimental lies,

As though these were for us the best years ever.

Perhaps they were, but we won't know till later,

When we have seen the landscapes of our lives,

And known the love of husbands or of wives,

And tasted of our fortunes, sweet or bitter.

For now, we're simply happy to move on

Yet sad for all that we must leave behind,

Celebrating as we say farewell.

Days and years flow swiftly through the mind,

Lingering long after they are gone

As tales we cannot help but oft retell.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/freeat.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

6/19: Free at Last! Our Childhood Is Over

Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

June 18, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A congratulatory graduation poem from faculty to students:

Each of us must climb our separate mountain

To reach at last our own extended view.

We can be no more than what we are,

Yet that is quite enough for us to do.

The world is far too great for comprehension,

And so we only know what we can know.

But given the abilities we're given,

That's still a long and weary way to go.

Yet on the way, how beautiful the moments!

How good it feels to have some skill or art!

How wonderful to pause in awestruck wonder

At what must fill the unsuspecting heart!

And so we're proud of each of you today

For all you've learned, and all you've tried to learn.

Knowledge brings the deepest satisfaction,

Not least because it's something that you earn.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/eachof.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

How Much I Love You I Can't Say

June 17, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated today, June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem full of gratitude:

How much I love you I can't say:

It's more than words can hold.

You're all at once my rich, red clay,

My potter and my mold.

Yours the words that shaped my voice,

The spirit within mine.

Yours the will that shaped my choice,

My fortune, and my sign.

How lucky I was to have had you

At the core of me!

Wise and good, you always knew

Just what I could be.

And so I came to be someone

Whom I could be proud of.

For this I give my swollen sum

Of gratitude and love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/howmuc.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

6/15: Before I Was Myself, You Made Me, Me

6/16: How Lucky to Have Had So Good a Father!

6/17: How Much I Love You I Can’t Say

How Lucky to Have Had So Good a Father

June 16, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which will be celebrated tomorrow, June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem for a deceased father:

How lucky to have had so good a father!

On us his warm, unstinting sun long shone.

We were, of his hardworking life, the center,

Loved for the pure joy of love alone.

Uncanny are the requisites of pleasure,

Coming as they do within the will.

Knowing well where lay his greatest treasure,

Years on years of love he labored still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/howluc.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

6/15: Before I Was Myself, You Made Me, Me

6/16: How Lucky to Have Had So Good a Father!

Before I Was Myself You Made Me, Me

June 15, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

An appreciative Father’s Day poem about adjusting the mixture of discipline and freedom:

Before I was myself you made me, me

With love and patience, discipline and tears,

Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Allowing me to sail upon my sea,

Though well within the headlands of your fears.

Before I was myself you made me, me

With dreams enough of what I was to be

And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,

Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Relinquishing your powers gradually

To let me shape myself among my peers.

Before I was myself you made me, me,

And being good and wise, you gracefully

As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears

Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.

For love inspires learning naturally:

The mind assents to what the heart reveres.

And so it was through love you made me, me

By slowly stepping back to set me free.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/befor2.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

6/15: Before I Was Myself, You Made Me, Me

A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

June 14, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

An appreciative Father’s Day poem to a stepfather:

A father and a dad are not the same:

One can be a dad and not a father,

Or one can be a father and not bother

To earn through love the more endearing name.

Some find fatherhood a bit too tame,

Leaving all the details to the mother,

Or dumping the sweet burden on another

Man with just a passing twinge of shame.

You have been our dad so many years

That you've become the landscape that is home,

The mountain that we look to from afar.

No matter where we go we're not alone,

For you remain within to still our fears

And be the word that tells us where we are.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/afath.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

June 13, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem about the need for faith in raising children:

Fathers must have faith in what they do,

As long as what they do proceeds from love.

The thousand thousand gifts of self accrue,

Held for years in bonds they know not of.

Even discipline, if not in anger,

Reasonable, not stubborn, patient, wise,

‘Mid rebellions resolute for order,

Succeeds at last in children’s later lives.

Deeds are bricks with which one builds a home,

A dwelling of the heart, though kids may roam,

Yielding more love than one might surmise.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fath11.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

June 12, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem about how to handle parental expectations:

Hope turns slowly into realization

As children slowly grow into themselves.

Perhaps some remnant fantasy rebels.

Perhaps one should revise one’s expectation.

Yet children owe one’s dreams no explanation,

For one must heed the tale that fortune tells

And greet the prodigal with joyful bells

That render the sweet song of the relation.

Have no illusion: Love is like a tide

Ebbing and flowing through the channeled heart,

Returning, turning as some smiling moon

‘Mid bits of shattered glory makes its way.

So must one with unremitting pride,

Destined for a quintessential part,

Attempt to harmonize that complex tune,

Yielding, shaping, listening to it play.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hopetu.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

June 11, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem about the love that underlies all close relations:

Fear not, for love is all around you,

All you see and feel, your light and air.

The passion and the joy of it surround you,

However much, or not, you know it’s there.

Even in the darkest of your days,

Raw anger, disappointment, fierce frustration,

‘Mid those whose frailties their love betrays,

Still, love configures every close relation.

Destiny comes dressed at times to kill,

And willing it takes every ounce of will,

Yet love’s the bloom in every obligation.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fearn2.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

Melanie

June 10, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is portraits of women.

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

A name poem for Melanie, a woman whose love is for God:

Melanie is always deep in love,

Even more so when she is alone.

Love of God is like a quiet lake,

A heart within her heart no heart can break,

Nor passion, pain, nor solitude remove.

In her is beauty of which all partake,

Easy as breath, dependable as stone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/melani.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Portraits of Women

6/4: Aimée

6/5: Maggie

6/6: Viridiana

6/7: Amalia

6/8: Lorraine

6/9: Abby

6/10: Melanie

Abby

June 9, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is portraits of women.

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

A name poem for Abby, a woman who has the bearing of a queen without the cause:

Abby is a queen without a country,

Blessed and cursed by destiny to be

Bereft of title, subjects, power, bounty,

Yet reigning in each word like royalty.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/abby.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Portraits of Women

6/4: Aimée

6/5: Maggie

6/6: Viridiana

6/7: Amalia

6/8: Lorraine

6/9: Abby

Lorraine

June 8, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is portraits of women.

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

A name poem for Lorraine, a woman who accepts equally the good and bad in life:

Lorraine is sovereign of her willing heart.

Of her pain she weaves a tapestry of flowers,

Revealing alike her love and joy and grace.

Remembrances of hopes she long had grieved

Are now among the gifts she has received,

Inseparable from those she would embrace.

No way can she divide her sea of hours:

Each breath sustains a whole and not a part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lorrai.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Portraits of Women

6/4: Aimée

6/5: Maggie

6/6: Viridiana

6/7: Amalia

6/8: Lorraine

Amalia

June 7, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is portraits of women.

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

A name poem for Amalia, a woman who knows the secret of happiness:

Amalia is happy, though life can be sad,

Making harsh words into rhythm and rhyme,

A friend whose sweet smile might make a tear laugh,

Loosen a longing, cut sorrows in half,

Impose on abuses a bright rainbow sign

As she returns good for all that is bad.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/amalia.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Portraits of Women

6/4: Aimée

6/5: Maggie

6/6: Viridiana

6/7: Amalia

Viridiana

June 6, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is portraits of women.

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

A name poem for Viridiana, a woman whose beauty, like that of most of us, is mainly unseen:

Viridiana is a vast blue ocean

In which ten thousand treasures lie unseen.

Rays glide like intimations in slow motion,

Intent on meaning more than they can mean.

Deeper still are jewels that wait for sunlight,

Iridescent on their beds of bone.

Awash in a white innocence like moonlight,

No grace can be perceived till it, unknown,

Awakens with the clarity of stone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/viridi.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Portraits of Women

6/4: Aimée

6/5: Maggie

6/6: Viridiana

Maggie

June 5, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is portraits of women.

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

A name poem for Maggie, a woman who is unaware of her goodness:

Maggie knows no end to her travail

As she finds little solace for her sins.

Giving far more than she has received,

Giving far more than she has believed,

In her there is no sense where grace begins

Even as she lives behind its veil.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/maggie.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Portraits of Women

6/4: Aimée

6/5: Maggie

Aimee

June 4, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is portraits of women.

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

A name poem for Aimée, who plays at love:

Aimée aims directly for the heart,

Imagining the impact of each dart,

More for fun than love, except of self,

Eager for each chance to prove her art,

Ever the elusive, impish elf.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/aimee.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Portraits of Women

6/4: Aimée

I Would Not Be the Sun to End Your Night

June 3, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is mourning in honor of Memorial Day, which was celebrated on May 28^th.

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

A poem about the role of a friend in the process of mourning:

I would not be the sun to end your night,

Nor would I be the wall to turn your tears.

But I will watch with you until it's light.

Because there are no words to set things right

Nor hopes that one immersed in mourning hears,

I would not be the sun to end your night,

Offering a wisdom far too bright

To soothe your pain or put to rest your fears.

But I will watch with you until it's light.

There must be time to grieve that sorrow might

Be equal to the love of days and years.

I would not be the sun to end your night.

For grief, before it breaks, must reach its height,

And tides must turn before one homeward steers.

But I will watch with you until it's light.

There are agonies no friendship can requite,

A bitterness unstained till dawn appears.

I would not be the sun to end your night.

But I will watch with you until it's light.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/iwould.html. For more poems about death, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Mourning

5/28: Memories Evoke a Painful Joy

5/29: Murder Ought Not Ever Be a Duty

5/31: I Feel as Though My Heart Must Stop with Pain

6/1: Buddy

6/2: In Eighth Grade My Best Friend Passed Away

6/3: I Would Not Be the Sun to End Your Night

In Eighth Grade My Best Friend Passed Away

June 2, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is mourning in honor of Memorial Day, which was celebrated on May 28^th.

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

A poem about the beauty of mourning someone who died long ago:

In eighth grade my best friend passed away.

He isn't gone, of course. I have him here

With me, within my heart, as I do always.

How beautiful that people are so dear

To one another! For all my life I'll love him.

Only one small part of us dies. The rest

Lives on in others. We are music within

Music. Nor do we ever hear the best

Of us, which sings in other hearts, a chorus

Of angels! However much I miss him, he sings

Here now, my friend, in me, to you, for us,

As we still breathe in the beauty that he brings.

Love lives forever passed along, and we

All are blessed to live, to love, to be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/in8th.html. For more poems about death, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Mourning

5/28: Memories Evoke a Painful Joy

5/29: Murder Ought Not Ever Be a Duty

5/31: I Feel as Though My Heart Must Stop with Pain

6/1: Buddy

6/2: In Eighth Grade My Best Friend Passed Away