Revel in Your Righteousness

October 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is peace and brotherly love, in honor of the fact that Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Muharram, the Muslim New Year, fall just one day apart.

Today’s poem is about how joy in being affects the mix of good and evil in everyone.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Revel in your righteousness,

For you are truly good,

Wise enough to understand

What lies behind each “should.”

There's depth to your morality

And kindness to your care.

Duty joins with empathy

To will the weight you bear.

Oh, yes, you hear the suffering

That sings within your heart

Of death and pain, of cruelty

In which all must take part.

Oh, yes, within you strangle

The people whom you hate,

And sex consumes your fantasies

With lust no love can sate.

But underneath, a canticle

Of gratitude and praise

Creates a choral pedal point

To harmonize your days.

There is a joy in being

That does all goodness move,

A universal gravity

That binds all things in love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Peace and Brotherly Love.

October 3: Ismail and Yitzhak Are Half-Brothers

October 4: Hatred Has No Color, Creed, or Race

October 5: My Home Is Here, America

October 6: Revel in Your Righteousness