Gifts Are Not Always Free

September 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is romantic love.

Today’s poem is a name and love poem about distinguishing between love as a gift and love as a burden.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Gifts are not always free.

A giver wants to know: Are you enjoying my gift?

Burdens can be sources of intense pleasure.

Recently, unable to distinguish between burdens and gifts,

Indian elephants dragged seventeen tons of teak logs over the Himalayas.

Each of us has made his or her own version of this mistake.

Love is a gift.

Burdens betray themselves by the rattle of their needs.

Each of us wants to know: Am I a burden or a gift?

Very few understand that to be a gift one must receive more than one gives,

Even while burdens come decked out in ribbons and bows.

Refusing a gift brings regret, not guilt.

Lingering doubts may be referred to a mirror.

Yesterday the elephants returned: happy, sweaty, and a good deal wiser.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.

September 19: Dreams Do Come True

September 20; Gifts Are Not Always Free