Abraham

February 26, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a name poem for Abraham, the leader.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Abraham endures, just like a mountain
Beset by storms more fierce than those below.
Resplendent in the sun, his white hair gleaming,
As he speaks, we marvel at his meaning,
Having grasped through him what we well know.
As though each moment of his life were lenten,
More than we, he feels each painful blow.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/t6ii9sOHDm8.

Treat Yourself Each Day to Love and Kindness

February 19, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the Lunar (Chinese) New Year, the Year of the Sheep, Ram, or Goat, written from the point of view of the sheep.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Treat yourself each day to love and kindness.
Heaven is a place within the heart.
Each ritual of faith may well seem mindless,
Yet one is only whole when one is part.
Even though I may seem timid, shy,
A worrier for all who might feel pain,
Remember well the well-wrought reason why:
One gives with love what will one’s love sustain.
Faith is one’s connection to the whole,
The story that makes sense of the event.
How might the self seem separate from the soul
Except through love perceived as permanent?
So must we be filled with love that we
Have just a glimpse of what it means to be,
Embracing freely what we cannot know,
Each suffering what all must undergo,
Patient in the hands of mystery.

© by Nicholas Gordon

You Are the Landscape of My Life

February 12, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a love poem for Valentine’s Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You are the landscape of my life,
The only place I feel at home,
The view familiar to my heart,
The woods and fields I call my own.

You are the music of my life,
The melody I silent sing,
The harmony beneath my words,
The rhythm of my wandering.

You are the space in which I live,
The boundary of my ecstasy,
The pleasure palace of my dreams,
The flesh that fills my fantasy.

All this you are to me and more,
A soul so much a part of mine
That when I look within, you’re there,
My joy, my love, my valentine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

A Love Duet for Contrary Voices

January 29, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week contrasts two views of love.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A LOVE DUET FOR TWO VOICES

ONE

Let me love you as I would,
Not as you will nor as I should.
For love, to linger, must be free,
And what you wish for isn’t me.

TWO

You might love me as you would,
But I must spurn you, as I should.
For though love is a choice that’s free,
Once made, it means that you love me.

ONE

Only you? I might love two,
Or three or four. As might you.
For love will ever have its way,
Regardless what we do or say.

TWO

Those who say that they love two
Love only one—themselves. For you
Confuse desire with love, whose way
Is willed, regardless what you say.

ONE

Is willed? Confuse love with desire?
But what is love without the fire?
A cage in which two birds expire,
Each to each a gutless liar.

TWO

Love begins, yes, as desire,
But then one must maintain the fire,
Lest it, lacking care, expire,
Making one a faithful liar.

BOTH

On this point we both agree:
Love loves not dishonesty.

ONE

But some would love upon the sea,

TWO

While some would love more vertically,
That past and future rooted be
In one well-tended, fruitful tree.

© by Nicholas Gordon