Heave a Happy Sigh of Pain and Pride

 

A poem for Mother’s Day to a mother whose grown-up child is about to leave home:

 

Heave a happy sigh of pain and pride,

Anticipating loneliness and freedom,

Putting plans for your new life aside,

Pausing to look back at your lost Eden.

Yes, you'll miss your child, now full grown,

Miss her terribly, as though you were

On some stark, barren inner plain alone,

The windswept stars with cold unease astir.

How poignantly you're ready to move on,

Each stage a garden time commands you leave,

Released from what you loved, your duty done.

'Tis our dearest burdens that we grieve.

So may new songs inspire you to dance,

Delighting in the gifts of circumstance,

As you pull back time's curtain to discover

Yet another garden, green as ever.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Bittersweet. By SYBS. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to heav10.html. For more poems and proverbs about marriage, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

Proverbs on Marriage

Marriage is part business, part romance;
Part contract, part licensure, part dance.

Why marriage? Isn't love enough?
Not really, when the sea gets rough.

Those who don't control their fate
Learn quickly to manipulate.

What makes a marriage work is work;
Happiness is not a perk.

In marriage, the stone fortress of
Each sovereign must be breached by love.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Bucolic Acrylic. By Dan Bodan. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/marrip3.html. For more poems and proverbs about marriage, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

So Many Years! And Now We Take for Granted

 

A political poem, written after 9/11, about the mistake of fighting terror as you would a conventional war:

 

So many years! And now we take for granted

What would have been unthinkable before

The terror that our leader called a war,

And life became more mean, less sure, more haunted.

But was it war? Or was that notion planted

By those who wished their murders could mean more,

Puffed up to fit the oft-recited lore

Of ancient enmities long since recanted?

Oh, do not dignify them with that word,

Or make them larger than they might appear,

Or justify their murders with our own!

There is no quick solution by the sword.

Our only option is to persevere,

Rebuilding bit by bit, but not alone.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Chariots of War. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/soman1.html. For more poems about terrorism and 9/11, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/terrorism911poems.html .

Forever Isn't Endless Time

 

A philosophical number poem about the meaning of forever:

 

Forever isn't endless time.
It isn't time at all.
For time's the measurement of change,
Though it be miniscule.

Yet ever means forever true,
Shorn of time and place,
Inserted into everydays,
Xeroxes of grace.

Years wash in and out as we
Experience forever.
A moment is eternity
Rolling on a river,
Still miraculous as ever.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Ceremonial Prelude. By Sir Cubworth. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fore10.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

The Passion of Love, the Passion of Lust

 

A 33^rd anniversary poem contrasting the sexual pleasures of love and lust:

 

The passion of love, the passion of lust:
How might they lead to the same burst of glory
If each drives the plot of a quite different story,
Resulting in mutual joy or disgust?
The answer is not in the act, but intent:
Yielding or sharing, giving or getting.
The direction of flow determines the setting,
Here, where the consequence shapes the event.
Remember that passion unlaces the heart;
Each touch is a doorway into the soul;
Each slow tongue-kiss renders a taste of the whole,
Yielding up truth as each joy plays its part.
Embrace, then, the person, and not just the flesh,
As one should feel safe in a state of undress.
Reveal not your riches, but to one whom you trust,
Saving for someone you love your chaste lust.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Emotional Love Theme. By Biz Baz Studio. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thepa3.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Exactly Who Are You

 

A philosophical Easter poem about one way of knowing what one owes others:

 

Exactly who are you? Why are you here?
And what is your purpose? And why should you care?
So what if there's suffering? What's it to you?
The world's not your problem. What more should you do?
Ever the question: What do I owe?
Reckon by beauty, and then you will know.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: A Kiss for Amanda. By DJ Williams. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/exact3.html. For more Easter poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html .

Perhaps There Is No Richer Ritual

 

A poem for Passover about the endurance of the ritual:

Perhaps there is no richer ritual:
A stirring tale, food, wine, prayer, and song,
Some history -- some real, some mythical --
Soul-seeds sown each spring, who knows how long?
One comes and goes; the memory remains,
Vividly present to each generation.
Enduring by evolving, it retains,
Restores, renews the ID of a nation.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Gymnopedie. By Erik Satie. Arranged by Wahneta Meixsell. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/perh13.html. For more Passover poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .