Forty-Three4

August 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is sacrifice, in honor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which falls on September 2 and commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son.

Today’s poem is a number poem about sacrifice when one has children at the same time one’s parents begin to need help.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-three sustains his love of life,

Old enough to know what he must do.

Responsibilities have come with age,

The burden and the blessing of this stage,

Yielding joys less pure than those he knew.

There are the distant child and former wife,

Hard truths that no resentment can assuage.

Retired parents soon will need him, too,

Encumbering him on both sides as the view

Encompasses more grace than he can gauge.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/43d.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Sacrifice

August 28: Thirty-One5

August 29: Forty-Three4