How Beautiful the Turning of the Year

 

A New Year’s poem about the artificial beauty of the border between one year and the next:

 

How beautiful the turning of the year!
A moment artificial yet profound:
Point upon an arbitrary chart
Passing like a breath upon the heart,
Yearning with anticipation wound,
New hope new harbored in old-fashioned cheer.
Even when the boundary line is clear,
We recognize the oneness of the ground.
Years, like circles, do not end or start
Except we lay across their truth our art,
Adjusting dates as they go round and round
Revolving to a tune long sung and dear.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Chords of Harmony. 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/howbea.html. For more poems for the new year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

Make Time, Make Time to Listen to Your Heart

 

A Christmas poem about the benefits of putting reason away for the holiday:

 

Make time, make time to listen to your heart!
Empty out your thoughts and then just listen!
Reason can't compete with faith and art.
Resist it! It will go into remission.
Yes, listen to the arguments of grace,
Clarifying mysteries no word
Has ever plumbed: the source of time and space,
Reality, Being, you, me -- all absurd.
If everything is equally a miracle,
Sing carols on a cold, crisp winter night,
Taking on the inexplicable,
Making it as lyrical as light.
Although your reason may not wish to stay,
Sing with the angels! Sing! It's Christmas Day!

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: The Beauty of Love. 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/maketi.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

Given That There Is No Explanation

 

A Chanukah poem about how Creation is equally a mystery to those who turn to reason or faith for an explanation:

 

Given that there is no explanation,

And that the provenance of the Creation,

Belief or no, remains a mystery,

Regarding how the whole thing came to be,

It makes no sense to squander sense on it.

Enjoy the candles, and when the last one's lit,

Love their loveliness, however lit.

 

Even so, one seeks an explanation:

Like one for Being, though there's none for it;

Like one for the creation of Creation,

Eternal Being bringing all to be.

Nor would no cause be less a mystery.

 

So faith and reason end in mystery,

Equally ignorant of what lit

The light from which all beings came to be,

Having no conclusive explanation

As to the existence of Creation,

Nor hint of what might be the cause of it,

Despite the tangibility of it.

Even so, the veil of mystery

Leads one to imagine the Creation,

Inventing how and why the void was lit,

Zealous for an ethical explanation,

A myth that makes love be the cause of be.

 

But one need not believe a myth to be

Open to the loveliness of it,

Nor need a theological explanation,

Nor care to solve a meta-mystery.

It might have been a miracle that lit

Eight days the lamps, as some say at Creation

A voice out of the void called forth Creation,

Needing out of love for us to be,

Demanding out of love our souls be lit,

Choosing not to be alone. It

Acts as fair use of a mystery,

Repurposing the role of explanation,

Making explanations of Creation

Exquisite art, that mystery might be

Not claimed by faith, but by the lamps it lit.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Heart Strings. By Coyote Hearing. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/given4.html. For more Chanukah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

December Finds Himself Again a Child

 

A calendar poem for December:

 

December finds himself again a child
Even as he undergoes his age.
Cold and early darkness now descend,
Embracing sanctuaries of delight.
More and more he stares into the night,
Becoming less and less concerned with ends,
Emblem of the innocent as sage
Restored to wonder by what he must yield.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Please. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/decemb.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

Sing of the Annual Cavalcade of Seasons

 

A Season’s Greetings poem about how the tilt of the Earth’s axis affects so many aspects of our lives:

Sing of the annual cavalcade of seasons,
Each passing through the portals of the heart,
A slow parade of brightly colored passions
Swirling round and round the rimless dark!
One sings in harmony with what one hears,
Now consonant, now dissonant, yet ever
Seasonal, as the ponderous pageant turns
Gracefully from one year to another.
Remember that a cosmic accident,
Earth’s tilted axis vis-à-vis its sun,
Ever shapes the heart’s environment,
The music that pervades the songs within.
In every thought and feeling, every pleasure,
Need, desire, pain, regret, perception,
Granted that free choice seems in one’s power,
Sing what you alone could not have written.

 © by Nicholas Gordon

 Audio and Video Music: Borderless. 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/sing23.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

 

A Thanksgiving poem thanking God for the gift of understanding how little we can understand:

 

Thank you for the gift of understanding
How little one can hope to understand.
A universe is all we have at hand,
Nothing too confusing or demanding.
Knowledge is like spindrift on the sea
Sitting on the surface of a wave.
Granted one can know how things behave,
Ill-formed to know how they might come to be.
Vast Your Being, beyond imagination!
Immeasurable, of neither shape nor size.
Nor ought one lose one's sense of adoration,
Gift equal to the gifts of mind and eyes.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Allemande. 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/than47.html. For more Thanksgiving poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html .

From Teachers, There Is Much That One Can Learn

 

A poem about the teaching profession:

 

From teachers, there is much that one can learn.
One ought not judge their worth by what they earn.
Rather, it's the task one should judge by:
To teach not only what, but how and why,
Yielding goods no teacher's pay could buy.

Even though teaching's a profession,
In fact, it is for many a vocation,
Given the knowledge and the expertise,
Having earned the requisite degrees
To touch the soul of each new generation.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: White River. 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/fromte.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html .

 

Voices of the Dead Are All Around Me

 

A Veterans Day poem about the psychological difficulty of returning to civilian life:

 

Voices of the dead are all around me.
Everyone alive seems much less real.
The smoke and screams and bombs and blood surround me,
Enduring through the love I still can't feel.
Reality is rarely in the present
As truth and falsehood are defined by pain.
Nor can I stand one moment that is pleasant.
Sanity to me just seems insane.
Death is more attractive than a wife,
And loneliness a far less lonely life.
Yet I must turn and somehow live again.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: End of Time. By Ugonna Onyekwe. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/voice2.html. For more Veterans Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

November Knows the Beauty of a Line

 

A calendar poem for November:

 

November knows the beauty of a line:
One stroke across the heart of a gray sky.
Vacancy is where true vision lies,
Eternity redacted into time.
Memory now moves into the garden,
Bringing with it music never heard.
Each slender, naked branch is like a word
Recalling the lost happiness of Eden.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Elegy. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/novemb.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

Hell Has Little Hope of Happiness

 

HELL HAS LITTLE HOPE OF HAPPINESS

A Halloween poem about why the inmates of Hell visit us on All Hallows’ Eve:

 

Hell has little hope of happiness.
A devil is eternally on fire,
Locked within unquenchable desire,
Longing with hatred for lost holiness.
On Halloween the devils and the dead
Wander through the world as though to warn
Each soul of an eternity forlorn,
Evangelists condemned to speak through dread,
Nightmares that must preach through pain till dawn.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Sharp Senses. By Ugonna Onyekwe. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hellha.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

It Wasn't Over When You Died

 

IT WASN'T OVER WHEN YOU DIED

A poem about how child abuse can be passed on through generations:

 

It wasn't over when you died,
When I was still too young to know
The damage that you did inside,
The pain that I would undergo.

When I was still too young to know,
You did to me what things you would.
The pain that I would undergo
Came later, once I understood.

You did to me what things you would
While I lay numb and still. The hate
Came later, once I understood
The sorrow that you came to sate.

While I lay numb and still, the hate
Arose in you as love, as need.
The sorrow that you came to sate
Then passed between us in your seed.

Arose in you as love, as need
To undergo yourself in me,
Then passed between us in your seed,
Became your lasting legacy.

To undergo yourself in me,
The damage that you did inside
Became your lasting legacy.
It wasn't over when you died.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Journeyman. 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/itwasn.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html .

Clearly, I Was a Person of My Times

A poem for Columbus Day in which Columbus asks us to understand the context of his actions and appreciate his role in creating our times:

 

Clearly, I was a person of my times,

One who treated races not my own

Like savages, sub-humans. Now my crimes

Understandably must stand alone,

Must, like Washington's, like Jefferson's,

Be seen as though memorialized in stone,

Unfit for celebration, the preference

Switched to those whose brutal genocide

Deserves far more than I to be remembered.

A plea for context, though: the seas I plied

Yielded up a future I engendered.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Destination Unknown. By Ugonna Onyekwe. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/clear4.html. For more Columbus Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/columbusdaypoems.html .

October Is Self-Confident and Strong

 

A calendar poem for October:

 

October is self-confident and strong,
Crisp and ready for the captious wind.
Though life lies less ahead and more behind,
Old age can barely peek through well-clad bones.
Beauty so outrageous can't be wrong,
Even as death steals among the stones,
Resting where the leaves lie battered, blind.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Chords of Harmony. 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/octobe.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html . 

You Wonder Whether Fate Is Accidental

 

A poem for Yom Kippur about a congregant who has doubts about the efficacy of prayer but prays out of love for the ritual:

 

You wonder whether fate is accidental,
Or whether this one day a harrowed heart
Might make some difference to a willing God,
Knowing faith is not experimental.
In fact, you know quite well that you don't know
Precisely why you're here, or why today,
Perhaps most out of loyalty, you pray,
Unwilling to let long-loved labors go,
Reciting with true grace the ancient part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: If You Close Your Eyes, I’m Still with You. By Late Night Feeling. Music free to use at YouTube. Photo Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/youwon.html. For more poems for the Jewish High Holy Days, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

Rosh Hashanah Opens to the Page

 

A Rosh Hashanah poem about the need for communal atonement:

 

Rosh Hashanah opens to the page
On which is writ, for good or ill, our fate.
Still wrestling with angels, we engage,
Harrowing our hearts, our future state.
However, "we" encompasses us all,
As though we were but droplets in a wave
Suspended on its journey to the shore,
Hard put to any single droplet save.
And so we pray not only for ourselves,
Nor only for our family, friends, or tribe:
All must be our congregation, else
How might we turn to God to turn the tide?

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: A Revelation. By Jeremy Blake. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/roshh2.html. For more poems for the Jewish High Holy Days, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

Adelaide Is Gracious to a Fault

 A name poem for Adelaide about an abused child who grows up with an exaggerated fear of conflict:

 

Adelaide is gracious to a fault,
Desiring harmony more than she does desire.
Each disagreement threatens to turn dire.
Likes and dislikes never leave the vault.
A child of war becomes adept at peace.
Intuitively she skirts the hidden mines,
Determined not to cross long-vanished lines,
Eluding rage long after rage has ceased.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adelai.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

September Lingers in the Arms of Love

 

A calendar poem for September:

 

September lingers in the arms of love
Even as a certain crispness calls.
Perhaps some fear she's not yet conscious of
Takes messages as she slows down and stalls,
Embracing joys that soon must be entombed.
More frequently, she starts to feel marooned.
Business bustles busily with tasks,
Each answering more questions than it asks,
Reminding her how life can be consumed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Elegy. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube. Photo Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/septem.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

Labor Is a Blessing and a Curse

 

A Labor Day poem about the dignity of labor:

 

Labor is a blessing and a curse,
As one must work to live and live to work.
Better jobs to get up for or worse,
On the whole, with none you'd go berserk.
Remember, then, that dignity requires
Doing, working, laboring -- a role
As giver, as attendant to desires
You recognize within some common soul.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Maryandra’s Waltz. By Jesse Gallagher. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/labori.html. For more Labor Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/labordaypoems.html .