Jorge

March 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a name poem about how, for an immigrant, national identity is elusive.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Jorge is not quite George, nor is he Horhay.

Old or young, he'll always be between.

Rivers flow through boundaries to the sea,

Guided by the law of gravity,

Eroding the land as they carve their winding ways.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/jorge.html. For more poems about nationality and race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 18: Jorge

So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a Saint Patrick's Day poem about letting go the dream of a purely Irish Ireland.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So let it go, that mythic Ireland!

Treasure the past, but let it, let it go!

Perhaps it was at one time wholly our land --

All of it -- but that was long ago.

The time when states were nations is now ending.

Races know no borders; people move

In search of life, their clothes and colors blending

Cultures that must now their presence prove.

Know, then, that not politics, but art,

'Mid neighbors various in faith and race,

Sustains a people's history and heart,

Dependent more on ritual than place.

As on St. Patrick's Day we march in green,

Yet we must let go the blood-drenched dream.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

So I'm the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is from St. Patrick to those possessed of racial hatred about the need for love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So I’m the patron saint of Ireland!

Then let me be for it a sign of peace.

Perhaps few know that I was born in England

And always thought of England as my home.

There was no England then, of course, nor Ireland.

Regardless, here’s an irony that should

Inhabit those possessed by racial hatred:

Come to love even those who wrong you,

Knowing I was an English slave in Ireland.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

Let There Be One Race -- The Human Race

March 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem celebrates one humanity with a variety of religions and identities.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Let there be one race – the human race,

And let the whole Earth be one common space.

Let all who live together in this place

Pursue in peace their chosen path to grace.

Let every culture celebrate its past

So that its precious way of life might last,

And that its legacy across the vast

Dark future fields like hand-sown seeds be cast.

Let truth be woven like a tapestry,

And let each slender thread well rendered be

By those whose passionate hearts and minds are free

To look and then make sense of what they see.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/letth6.html. For more poems about nationality and race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 14, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a poem for the Jewish holiday of Purim about preserving identity through ritual.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Praised be those who remember to remember!

Unless they do, what we do is in vain.

Ritual reserves a time to render

In myth and play a world that else would wane,

Memories now passed along the chain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/prais5.html. For more Purim poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/holidaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

Going Home to a Place You've Never Been

March 13, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a St. Patrick’s Day poem about returning to the country your grandparents left three generations ago.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Going home to a place you’ve never been,

To long-loved landscapes that you’ve never seen,

To where your soul was sculpted by a wind

Your parents’ parents left still young behind.

How long do such ancestral memories last?

When, if ever, can the past be past?

You do not know, but only know right now

This place has gripped your heart like home somehow.

Your plane descends above green hills where once

Your people for millennia learned to dance

The dance you learned third hand, yet dancing still,

You land, weeping hard against your will.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

Happy Second Anniversary3

March 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a 2^nd anniversary poem about the movement from passion to love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy second anniversary!

Adjustments have been made, and time moves on.

Pleasure is routine, compulsory;

Paradise is just another dawn.

Yet there is yet a bloom upon the rose

So long as there is charity and will.

Even as the passion comes and goes,

Caring is the best seducer still.

Of time and love there is much to be learned;

No happiness can last unless it's earned,

Depending on your need, desire, and skill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happ36.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

March 7: Strong Relationships Require Strength

March 8: Thirteen Is a Very Lucky Number

March 9: The Luck in Love Lies Mainly at the Start

March 10: There Is a Mountain Somewhere Near

March 11: Memories This Day Come Singing, Singing

March 12: Happy Second Anniversary