Here Again We Have a New Beginning

December 31, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is new beginnings, in honor of the New Year.

Today’s poem is a New Year’s poem about beginning repeatedly at the start of each new year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Here again we have a new beginning,

An old refrain to start a brand-new verse.

Perhaps the belly droops, the hair is thinning;

Perhaps each year the memory gets worse.

Yet new beginnings always start with hope,

Needing hope to nurture innocence,

Endeavoring to find a way to cope

When nothing deeply thought about makes sense.

Years come and go; Eden doesn’t change.

Each new year we toddle forth again,

Afoot into a world that’s ever strange,

Restored by some great turning tide within.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/hereag.html. For more poems for the New Year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas/New Beginnings

December 25: Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

December 26: Iven Lee

December 27: Sixty-Six3

December 28: Fifty-Two4

December 29: Thirteen2

December 30: Welcome to Our Family

December 31: Here Again We Have a New Beginning

Welcome to Our Family

December 30, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is new beginnings, in honor of the New Year.

Today’s poem welcomes a newborn into his or her adoptive family.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Welcome to our family,

Dear child of our hearts!

Welcome to the bond of love

Of which you now are part.

Welcome to our waiting arms

That will your world enfold.

Welcome to our way of life

That will your future mold.

Welcome to our hopes and dreams,

Our faults and foibles, too,

For some of our soul-seeds, hand sown,

Will bear sweet fruit in you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/welco5.html. For more poems about adoption, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adoptionpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas/New Beginnings

December 25: Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

December 26: Iven Lee

December 27: Sixty-Six3

December 28: Fifty-Two4

December 29: Thirteen2

December 30: Welcome to Our Family

Thirteen2

December 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is new beginnings, in honor of the New Year.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone about to enter adolescence.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirteen is a very lucky age!

Hope runs strong as brand-new powers emerge.

In thought and feeling one has turned a page,

Revealing childish pleasures one would purge.

The future is a large and empty room,

Easy enough to furnish with one’s dreams!

Eventually, one’s brightest flowers will bloom.

Now best friends forever share their schemes.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/52d.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas/New Beginnings

December 25: Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

December 26: Iven Lee

December 27: Sixty-Six3

December 28: Fifty-Two4

December 29: Thirteen2

Fifty-Two4

December 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is new beginnings, in honor of the New Year.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone about to begin a new career.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-two is ready to begin,

Invested in a new and bright career.

Futures are incorrigibly uncertain,

Tending to inspire both hope and fear.

Yet she finds the wherewithal within.

There is neither lock nor code nor curtain

Where her source of strength has always been,

Open to whoever would come near.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/52d.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas/New Beginnings

December 25: Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

December 26: Iven Lee

December 27: Sixty-Six3

December 28: Fifty-Two4

Sixty-Six3

December 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is new beginnings, in honor of the New Year.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone just recently retired.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-six is happily retired,

Immersed in interests she has long enjoyed.

X-ray well her will and you will find

That none of its resolve has been destroyed.

Yet now a bit less shuffling is required.

So has her leisure left her spirit buoyed,

In labor lost, but of a different kind,

Xerophyte in bloom, by grace inspired.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/66c.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas/New Beginnings

December 25: Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

December 26: Iven Lee

December 27: Sixty-Six3

Iven Lee

December 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is new beginnings, in honor of the New Year.

Today’s poem is a name poem for new-born child who has been named for someone else.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Iven Lee's a newborn,

Very much adored.

Each soul just coming through the door,

Named for one who came before,

Lives within a chord,

Each note from some heart torn,

Each motion something more.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/ivenle.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas/New Beginnings

December 25: Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

December 26: Iven Lee

Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

December 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since Christmas falls on a Monday this year, we’ll have one more Christmas poem for today and then begin the theme of new beginnings tomorrow, in honor of the New Year.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem to a child about the importance of giving at Christmas.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Christmas is a song of joy and love,

However it is sung, however rendered,

Rich source of childhood pleasures that will prove

In later life a lesson long remembered.

So may you share the joys of Christmas time,

Though still a child, by giving more and more,

Making child and adult combine

As slowly, slowly you approach that door,

Surer of what giving might be for.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/chris4.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas/New Beginnings

December 25: Christmas Is a Song of Joy and Love

Crazy Christmas

December 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Christmas, which is celebrated tomorrow, on December 25. Tonight is Christmas Eve.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem to a child about joining in the angels’ song.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Crazy Christmas! Angels falling

Down like snowflakes from the sky.

Hear their joyful calling, calling

Each to each as they go by.

“Peace on Earth! Good will to all!”

They sing on this cold Christmas Eve.

Oh, my child, heed their call,

And in Creation’s good believe.

For angels know far more than we,

And every word they say is true.

So with them join in joyfully,

And sing to them, as they to you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/crazyc.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

December 18: Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

December 19: Myths Are Our Immortal Mentors

December 20: Everyone Loves Christmas

December 21: Maybe There’s No Magic in the Morning

December 22: Maybe Christmas Means a Little Less

December 23: Christmas Should Be Always in One’s Heart

December 24: Crazy Christmas

Christmas Should Be Always in One's Heart

December 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem about how the beauty of Christmas can make life an angel’s song.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Christmas should be always in one’s heart,

Home for joys one never should outgrow,

Rich memories, a source of inner art,

Implanted in whatever one might know.

Sing, then, a melody of joy and love,

Twin columns holding up the holiday,

Making life, however it might prove,

A song of angels sung by mortal clay

So sweetly it seems all one needs to say.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/chris3.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

December 18: Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

December 19: Myths Are Our Immortal Mentors

December 20: Everyone Loves Christmas

December 21: Maybe There’s No Magic in the Morning

December 22: Maybe Christmas Means a Little Less

December 23: Christmas Should Be Always in One’s Heart

Maybe Christmas Means a Little Less

December 22, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem to an older child, urging him or her to keep Christmas alive within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe Christmas means a little less

Each year as the enchantment wears away.

Remember that one key to happiness

Remains the joy one feels on Christmas Day.

Years of faith in Santa Claus became

Childhood’s best encouragement to dream,

Having given fantasy a name

Real enough to seem to more than seem.

In memories of wonder, awe, and pleasure,

Sustained by celebrations every year,

There’s a magic one might always treasure,

Making one’s delight seem far more dear.

As childhood fades, let Christmas not fade, too,

So that its joy can still reside in you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/maybec.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

December 18: Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

December 19: Myths Are Our Immortal Mentors

December 20: Everyone Loves Christmas

December 21: Maybe There’s No Magic in the Morning

December 22: Maybe Christmas Means a Little Less

Maybe There's No Magic to the Morning

December 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem about the child’s Christmas surviving in the adult.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe there’s no magic to the morning.

Eventually, life’s a losing game.

Rituals go stale with little warning.

Revelation shrivels to a name.

Yet once each moment was a miracle.

Christmas touched the unsuspecting heart,

Home and Heaven equally empirical,

Reality a play of sense and art.

In everyone that child is still dreaming,

Still living in a world shaped by desire.

Truth is not the fruit of sense but meaning,

More varied than one’s reason might require.

As sunlight gleams according to one’s view,

So may the magic of this day touch you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb16.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

December 18: Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

December 19: Myths Are Our Immortal Mentors

December 20: Everyone Loves Christmas

December 21: Maybe There’s No Magic in the Morning

Everyone Loves Christmas

December 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem for children about how all the animals love Christmas.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Everyone loves Christmas,

Even flies and fleas,

Even seals and snakes and snails,

Beavers, bats, and bees.

Elephants love Christmas,

And hamsters, horses, hares,

Penguins, parrots, porpoises,

Belugas, bedbugs, bears.

Don't you just love Christmas?

All the world's at peace.

Wolves lie down with walruses

While goats give gifts to geese.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/everyo.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

December 18: Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

December 19: Myths Are Our Immortal Mentors

December 20: Everyone Loves Christmas

Myths Are Our Immortal Mentors

December 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem about the significance of myth in shaping our lives.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Myths are our immortal mentors,

Each a sculptor of the heart,

Residing at life’s moral center,

Reigning long through love and art.

Years and generations pass,

Christmas lovingly passed on.

Holidays are made to last,

Renewing what might else be gone.

Inevitably, passions pale,

Souls turn skeptical, and yet

The tales of childhood prevail,

Myths too vivid to forget.

Adults might still, or not, believe

Stories whose lost glow they grieve.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mythsa.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

December 18: Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

December 19: Myths Are Our Immortal Mentors

Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

December 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem about making Christmas joyful both without and within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Come to Christmas with clean hands and heart,

Having dressed appropriately within,

Ready happily to play your part

In making Christmas joyful yet again.

Sing the ancient melodies that bring

To life the season’s harmony and peace.

Maybe you’ll with friends and family sing,

As for one moment want and worry cease

So that your love for living might take wing.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/cometo.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/christmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

December 18: Come to Christmas with Clean Hands and Heart

Happy, Happy Hanukkah

December 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is a Hanukkah poem comparing the soul to a Hanukkah candle.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy, Happy Hanukkah!

As candles dance with light,

Now watch them on the window sill

Undo a bit of night.

Know that you're a candle, too,

Kindled by a flame

Alight with love, the Holy One,

Ha-Shem, which means, The Name.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ81.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

December 15: How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

December 16: Be Comfortable with Doubt, with Death, with Darkness

December 17: Happy, Happy Hanukkah

Be Comfortable with Doubt, with Death, with Darkness

December 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how love is an eternity within time, even though every flame must burn out.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Be comfortable with doubt, with death, with darkness.

One’s candle will inevitably burn out.

No miracle can make it last forever,

Nor keep two souls eternally together.

In life there is but one way things turn out.

Embrace it, then, in all its senseless starkness.

Sing of life in all its poignant starkness,

Equally of light and gentle darkness,

The timeless end, however time turns out,

Here, where every holy lamp burns out.

Each finds greater happiness together.

Love is a redaction of forever.

In loving one is for a time forever,

Zen-like in one’s sense of senseless starkness,

Aware that one is one, and that together

Both are singly subject to the darkness,

Embracing still a soul that will burn out,

Touched by love, however things turn out,

Having loved, however things turn out.

Given, one will not exist forever

And like a Hanukkah candle will burn out,

Burning beautifully against life’s starkness,

Radiant dancer lighting up the darkness.

In love and longing, dancers dance together,

Each flame more bright and beautiful together,

Loving life however it turns out,

A miracle of light upon the darkness.

Nor need one need more time to taste forever,

Despite the naked truth in all its starkness,

Knowing that in time all flames burn out,

Eventually that even stars burn out.

Now is forever. The only forever. Together

Now is together forever. Life ends in starkness,

And yet one’s time is timeless, it turns out.

Eternity is now. One lives forever,

Light infinite upon a sea of darkness,

Lighting darkness still. Though lights turn out,

Each was still is. Forever is. Together

Now burning out of love amid life’s starkness.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/becomf.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

December 15: How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

December 16: Be Comfortable with Doubt, with Death, with Darkness

How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

December 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how the Hanukkah lights are sustained by being rekindled every year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How beautiful the Hanukkah lights,

All aglow on winter nights!

Nine candles dancing, dancing down

Until no trace of flame is found.

Knowing they will be again

Kindled to remember when

A miracle such fire sustained

Helps keep alive the inner flame.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/howbe5.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

December 15: How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

Being in Eternity and Time

December 14, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how one can through the imagination know eternity within time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Being in eternity and time,

One knows both, as though a piece of music

Not only was itself, but every piece

Not heard, not even written, as though the moment

Included all that ever was, could ever be,

Even what one never could imagine.

Sing of the gift that brings one to imagine

Eternity within each tick of time,

The daily human miracle that can be

Heard in the intensity of music,

Every ecstasy that fills the moment,

Letting one find glory piece by piece.

In the eternal moment there is peace.

Zero and infinity. Imagine

All creation in a single moment,

Being in the grip of conscious time,

Eternities in thoughts, in words, in music,

That bring one to the finite brink of be,

Here beside the radiance of be.

Each of us can turn within towards peace,

Living in the midst of silent music,

Listening to songs one can imagine.

Even fuel-less flames go out in time.

Nor can forever be but in the moment.

Give thanks for every day, year, hour, moment,

Alive as only one who dies can be.

Be grateful for the unsought gift of time,

Ripening towards wisdom, love, and peace.

In every pulse, one can reimagine

Eternity, as grace, as timeless music.

Live, then, in the ambiance of music,

Alive in both forever and the moment,

Needing, to be joyful, to imagine

Death within the miracle of be,

Knowing that eternal inner peace

Endures beneath the holocaust of time.

Nor does the music vanish with the moment.

Nor can what one imagines well but be

A piece of praise song sung for one’s own time.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/being4.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 13, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began last night, December 12.

Today’s poem is a Chanukah poem about why one might celebrate a miracle one does not believe occurred.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Can one celebrate a miracle,

Having no belief that one occurred?

A row of candles might be beautiful:

Need one recall their reason seems absurd?

Underneath the story lies the meaning

Kindled by the ritual memory,

A tale of faith that one might find redeeming,

However secular one’s faith might be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/canon2.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins tonight, December 12.

Today’s poem is about the inseparability of darkness and light.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Bless the darkness, bless the light.

Open up your fearful heart.

None can sever soul from breath.

None can sever life from death.

If none can tell the two apart,

Each must bless both bloom and blight.

Sing of beauty, sing of blight,

Ecstasy and dying light!

The miracles that oceans part

Have their blueprints in the heart.

Even at the edge of death,

Life looks for eternal breath.

In every heartbeat, every breath,

Zealous to postpone the blight,

Aware of age, aware of death,

But anxious to prolong the light,

Each sings of sunlight in the heart

To bless with joy a well-played part,

Here to sing and then depart.

Eight days the nation held its breath.

Light eternal lit the heart,

Letting all know death and blight

Endure but briefly, while the light

Needs only faith to conquer death.

Granted faith can conquer death,

And God can seas and oceans part.

But life is darkness filled with light,

Radiant in every breath,

Infinity enduring blight,

Ending with a broken heart.

Life requires a ravenous heart

And every moment feeds on death,

Needing darkness, needing blight,

Dear sweet whole that none can part,

Kindling joy in every breath,

Each aging pulse a pulse of light.

Now love’s lantern lights the heart,

Now death curls around each breath.

And none can blight from blessing part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/bless8.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

Have a Happy Hanukah

December 11, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins on December 13.

Today’s poem is a Hanukkah poem about lighting the Hanukkah lights both without and within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Have a happy Hanukkah

And light the dancing lights!

Now bright Heaven’s harbinger

Undoes the long, cold nights.

Kindle on your windowsill,

Kindle in your heart,

A symbol of a miracle,

Here to light the dark.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/havea2.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

Happiness Breaches, Bursting from the Deep

December 10, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about the comings and goings of happiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness breaches, bursting from the deep,

And then sounds, submerged for humdrum days,

Playing with the heart as music plays,

Passionate, peaceful, poised to laugh or weep.

Years of happiness are tidal, turning,

Having silent commerce with the moon,

Overwhelming sand and flowering dune,

Leaving with an outbound rush of yearning.

Implanted in the frozen soil of winter,

Days of celebration blossom still,

A sign of life’s resilience as the will

Yields nothing to the season, dark and bitter,

Singing of happiness through good and ill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ80.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

December 6: Somewhere There’s a Magic Door

December 7: Holidays Have Changed over the Eons

December 8: Holidays Are Happy Days

December 9: Happiness Is Often Background Music

December 10: Happiness Breaches, Bursting from the Deep

Happiness Is Often Background Music

December 9, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about holidays as the festive markers of time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness is often background music,

A song one hears but rarely listens to,

Perhaps because the lyrics aren’t new,

Perhaps because one does not often choose it.

Years are gifts to cherish day by day.

However, one remembers year by year --

On birthdays, holidays, days of ritual cheer,

Life’s festive markers placed along one’s way.

In unmarked days is where one’s happiness happens,

Days of work, of longing, of routine,

A quiet happiness, a gentle green,

Yielding, yes, at times to cares and passions,

Still savoring the moment and the dream.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ79.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

December 6: Somewhere There’s a Magic Door

December 7: Holidays Have Changed over the Eons

December 8: Holidays Are Happy Days

December 9: Happiness Is Often Background Music

Holidays Are Happy Days

December 8, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a holiday poem for a child explaining why the holidays come at this time of year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holidays are happy days,

Full of gifts and sweets!

There are lots of games to play,

And lots of toys and treats!

But why does all this happen

At just this time of year

When it is so cold and dark,

With little cause for cheer?

The day that is the shortest,

With the longest night,

Is when the heavens start to give

Each day a bit more light.

And so we mark the turn towards light

With holidays that say

That light’s a miracle, and joy

Can light the darkest day.

And so it is in life: The darkest

Hours will be when

The light will turn, and with it hope

Will be reborn again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holi11.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

December 6: Somewhere There’s a Magic Door

December 7: Holidays Have Changed over the Eons

December 8: Holidays Are Happy Days

Holidays Have Changed over the Eons

December 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about the differences between ancient and modern holiday celebrations.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holidays have changed over the eons

As we evolved from hunters into peons,

Pausing by the graves of mysteries

Preserved for family feasts and shopping sprees,

Yearning for what life was meant to be,

Having lived so long unnaturally.

Once upon a time a holiday

Looked a lot more like a holy day,

In which through ritual joy and chanted prayer,

Dancing, dancing, passionately there,

A person might the restless self erase,

Yielding to a ravenous embrace,

Singing, dancing with unearthly grace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holi10.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

December 6: Somewhere There’s a Magic Door

December 7: Holidays Have Changed over the Eons

Somewhere There's a Magic Door

December 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a holiday poem for a child about finding gifts.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Somewhere there’s a magic door

That opens to your touch.

Within you’ll find the special gifts

That come with who you are.

Of course there might be many more,

But these are quite enough

To bring you all that you might wish

Upon your favorite star.

Perhaps you’ll find the gifts of grace,

Intelligence, or art,

A way with words or numbers, or

A knack for fantasy.

All you find you will embrace

And hold within your heart,

The gifts that are intended for

The gift that you will be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/somew7.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

December 6: Somewhere There’s a Magic Door

How About Those Holidays

December 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays about the continued need for holidays even as one grows older.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How about those holidays!

A festive time of year,

Perhaps because the shortened days

Presuppose an inward gaze,

Yet stir a need for cheer.

How about those holidays?

One knows that they are near,

Listening as the music plays

In stores and squares the songs of praise,

Delightful to the ear.

Although the childhood dream decays,

Yearning that no reason sways

Still holds the season dear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/howabo.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about appreciating the beauty that lies beneath the sentimentality.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hints of happiness are all around you,

Alive within the sentiment for sale.

Perhaps because the holidays surround you,

Placed ubiquitously, their passions pale.

Yet truth is often smothered in cliché,

However lean and healthy simply broiled.

One can love the rituals of the day,

Lingering over what cannot be spoiled.

In Hanukkah, in Christmas, and in New Year's,

Delight is ancient, having long survived,

Antidote for what had been true fears,

Yearnings for a sun each year revived,

Shining wanly on a land that died.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/hints2.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You