Happy Fifteenth Anniversary

 A 15^th anniversary poem comparing marriage to two trees planted close together:

 

Happy fifteenth anniversary!

A long time to be planted side by side!

Praised be those whose love and faith abide.

Praised be those who would deep rooted be.

Years entangle closely planted trees,

From canopy to root together tied,

Interwoven tightly, so that eyed

Full flower, which is which is hard to see.

Two trunks, one greater whole, both root and branch,

Each able to withstand a stronger wind,

Each more intact together than alone.

Nor is this close proximity by chance,

This will to be so intimately combined,

Having each for each shed leaves on stone.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Kiss the Sky. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hap103.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Is One Month an Anniversary

May 1, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

An anniversary poem for a one-month anniversary:

Is one month an anniversary?
"Anno," after all, refers to "year."
But in my heart there's such a celebration
That bells must ring! And words? Well, I don't care.

In our lives there will be many years:
The world will turn and turn around our love.
Real anniversaries will come and go,
Yet none could more than this my wild heart move!

I know this cannot be what it might seem:
A perfect song that will not have an end.
It's just the newness makes it seem like spring,
Yet though it age, it will age like wine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/is1mon.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
April 26: Here There Are No Platitudes to Share
April 27: Home Must Be a Daily Re-Creation
April 28: How Beautiful the Blandishments of Spring
April 29: How Beautiful the Light upon the Water
April 30: How Can I Say What Is Too Much for Words
May 1: Is One Month an Anniversary

How Can I Say What Is Too Much for Words

April 30, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

An anniversary poem about how each might know how the other’s love feels:

How can I say what is too much for words?
A rainbow cannot fit into my heart.
Perhaps we should be musical as birds
Perched singing of our love with practiced art.
You cannot taste my happiness, or feel
A little of the chill of your caress.
No word or metaphor can make it real,
Nor song contain the truth I would express.
In my love there are mountains miles high,
Valleys rainbow carpeted, and wide
Enough for clear, still lakes to steal the sky ...
R-R-R-R!!! I cannot tell you what's inside!
So you must turn to what you feel for me,
And read therein my tender rhapsody.
Reach deep, my love, and I will be there, too:
You have me in your heart, as I have you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/howca2.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
April 26: Here There Are No Platitudes to Share
April 27: Home Must Be a Daily Re-Creation
April 28: How Beautiful the Blandishments of Spring
April 29: How Beautiful the Light upon the Water
April 30: How Can I Say What Is Too Much for Words

Home Must Be a Daily Re-Creation

April 27, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

An anniversary poem about the interplay between physical homes and love:

Home must be a daily re-creation
As two make whole a space not wholly theirs.
Places are part passion, part sensation,
Pending love to place the charms and chairs.
Yearning can appropriate the earth,
Annexing stone to self and eye to sea;
Nor can the wind bring wandering souls to birth,
Needing love to wake their will-to-be.
In shared dominion domicile sits,
Vestal fires lighting hearth and heart,
Equal reigns derived from equal writs,
Restorations none can tell apart.
So must home be both gift and cherished choice,
An outer bulwark and an inner voice,
Requiring love to work its wonders well,
Yet well worth loving for both pith and shell.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/homemu.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
April 26: Here There Are No Platitudes to Share
April 27: Home Must Be a Daily Re-Creation

Here There Are No Platitudes to Share

April 26, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A 35th anniversary poem about a depth of feeling well beyond words:

Here there are no platitudes to share;
After all these years, no words to measure.
Perhaps such love is more than one can bear;
Perhaps one's joy lies far beyond one's pleasure.
Yet words are merely sluices to the flood
That wells well inland from the graceful wall
Holding in its smile a truth that would
Inundate the bare brown fields of fall.
Remember, then, the beauty that will grow
Till time lets down the curtain of its longing;
Years are fast, but happiness is slow,
For there is no replacement for belonging.
In love there is an ease not easily won,
Freedom from a freedom too undone,
Tears no tears can drain or words can tell,
Held in a heart that knows its passions well.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/heret4.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
April 26: Here There Are No Platitudes to Share

Health and Happiness Proceed from Love

March 7, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

An eleventh anniversary poem about love and passion:

Health and happiness proceed from love,
As love proceeds from uncorrupted passion.
Praised be the gift that does so blissful prove,
Poured forth from paradise for us to fashion.
Yet passion, like a wave, can come and go,
Even as love waits upon the shore,
Looking to put down some roots and grow,
Embracing of life's joys the quiet core.
Vested in one heart, one finds a place
Eternal in the beauty of its longing,
Nor does one ever tire of a face
That years have given unexpected grace,
Hallowed by the wonder of belonging.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/health.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within
March 5: Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number
March 6: Harbors Hold Our Cravings in Their Arms
March 7: Health and Happiness Proceed from Love

Harbors Hold Our Cravings in Their Arms

March 6, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A 39th anniversary poem about the need for emotional harbors:

Harbors hold our cravings in their arms
After days out on the open sea.
Passions, sheltered, unrestrain their charms,
Perhaps because at anchor we are free.
Years, like mist, reveal familiar beauties,
The freshness of the newly unforeseen,
Hidden in the diligence of duties
In obeisance to what has been.
Remember, then, the grace that comes with being
The harbor each to hold the other's heart,
Yearning for precisely what you're seeing,
Needing what you cannot have apart.
In celebration of your years together,
Neither circumstantial nor forever,
Take this day to tally up your trove,
Harboring your lust within your love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/harbor.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within
March 5: Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number
March 6: Harbors Hold Our Cravings in Their Arms

Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number

March 5, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A tenth anniversary poem comparing married love to a dance:

Ten years! Such a round, emphatic number!
Each step's an invitation to a dance
Not unlike the foxtrot or the rumba,
Yielding to the rhythms of romance.
Each is one, yet dances as a couple,
A single body joined by love and art,
Rejoicing in the movement, sure and supple,
Singing to the music of the heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/10yea2.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within
March 5: Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number

Happiness Comes Wholly from Within

March 4, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A fourth anniversary poem in praise of those who know the secret of happiness:

Happiness comes wholly from within,
A gift of wisdom, temperament, and love.
Praised be those who know what is worthwhile,
Pleased to find their pleasures in the heart,
Yearning for a beauty that is theirs.

For them, good feelings aren't hard to spin.
One can care for life despite one's cares.
Underneath the feeling is the art,
Returning grace for grace and smile for smile.
They bear their riches on an inner wind,
Holding course for lands that blessed will prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ68.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within

Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass

March 3, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A 40th anniversary poem in which the anniversary is a mountain pass on which one can gaze on both the future and the past:

Forty years of marriage are a pass
On which one rests to see the view both ways,
Remembering the valleys left behind,
Taking in the grandeur just ahead.
Yet there is far too much for one to see.


Years of youth must blend like distant brass
Even as love knots the migrant days
And time blows through the moment like a wind.
Regrets and gratitude are here well wed,
So much alike, one could the other be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/40yea2.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass

For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing

March 2, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A 50th anniversary poem for a very happily married couple:

For some the years turn out to be a blessing:
In life and love the choices of the heart
Find their way to lushly colored meadows
Touched at night by fantasies of stars.
Yearnings sway like dancers in the wind.

You have learned the secrets of caressing,
Each in passionate tune with each other's part.
All the wind-whipped ripples in your shallows
Reappear as song that nothing mars,
Sheer happiness unfolding without end.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/50yea2.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing

How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life

March 1, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A fifth anniversary poem for a couple who got together late in life:

How might a couple couple late in life,
A time when some are loath to start anew?
Perhaps the heart retains its appetite;
Perhaps one's lust for love is never through.
Years may modify that primal need,
For passion fades like a slowly setting sun.
Intimacy stays, though tides recede;
Fulfillment comes as lucid mornings come.
The task of making coupling make sense
Has the benefit of experience.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/howm13.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life

Poem of the Week

July 21, 2011 #643

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Seven years! Is that the famous itch?
Each marriage tells a story all its own.
Very few can hitch without a hitch.
Enduring love, however, needs a home.
Nor can a couple couple long without
Yearning for some token of the heart.
Ecstasy is not what love's about.
A passion is made permanent by art.
Rejoice, then, in what heart and mind decree!
Seven is good luck – so may it be!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

March 3, 2011 #623

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Four years? No, it cannot be that long!
Only yesterday you two were married!
Unplug the sundial! The shadow must be wrong!
Rotating somethings somewhere have miscarried!
Yet so it is – four years have passed already,
Even as the moment is still here.
As time moves on, the miracle holds steady --
Real life, real love, far more than one can bear,
Simply, truly, beautifully there.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

August 19, 2010 #595
 
Dear Subscriber:
 
This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.
 
You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." 
 
You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.
 
Yours,
 
Nick Gordon
 
Happy fourth anniversary --
A moment to reflect on life and love.
Praised be those who whittle what they see,
Presuming their surroundings to improve.
Yearning needs companionship, and choice
Finds most content when joined, as though in song,
Open to a harmonizing voice,
United in conviction twice as strong.
Rejoice, then, in the fortune of your fate,
The sweet dependence of your chosen state,
Happy in a love where you belong.
 
© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

July 15, 2010 #590
 
Dear Subscriber:
 
This week’s poem of the week is a philosophical anniversary poem.
 
You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." 
 
You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.
 
Yours,
 
Nick Gordon
 
Here among the cabbages
A rhapsody takes root,
Pastorale for savages,
Passion that bears fruit.
Yearning is unquenchable,
A thirst no drink can slake,
Nor can a desperate canticle
Need's brutal chokeholds break.
Instead, there is a symphony
Vast as all that is,
Echo of eternity,
Replica of bliss,
So beautiful and lasting
All must their spirits buoy,
Replenishing the passing
Years with love and joy.
 
© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

April 8, 2010 #576
 
Dear Subscriber:
 
This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.
 
You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." 
 
You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.
 
Yours,
 
Nick Gordon
 
Happy First Anniversary!
A moment to stand back and look at life,
Pleased with this first year as man and wife,
Pleased with dreams that now have come to be.
Yet these are just the first few opening measures:
For you there is a symphony in store,
In which the years will ask of you much more,
Rewarding you with rich and varied pleasures.
So may this moment sing of joy and love,
The first of many that your hearts will move.
 
© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

January 7, 2010 #563

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness hangs loosely on your lives,
A garment that you wear with fortune's blessing.
Praised be both the wisdom and the will
Pressed between the pages of your days,
Years and years of choices amid chances.

For now, this day, the rhapsody revives
Old memories of love beyond expressing,
Returned as music, passionate and still,
That turns and turns with wonder as it plays,
Yearning that refuses trite romances.

There is a place in all love that survives --
Home, where nakedness needs no undressing,
In which, with candor and sufficient skill,
Reason turns away its clear-eyed gaze,
Deferring to the heart, which weeps and dances.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

September 10, 2009 #546

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy sixth anniversary!
As years pass, the coating wears away,
Perhaps revealing more than one can see,
Perhaps revealing more than one can say.
Yet what one feels is more than ecstasy.

So is love far more than one can bear --
In grace, in truth, in sacrifice, in power.
Xylophones play on unheard, the air
Tingling somewhere deep beneath the hour,
Heaven within the heart that seeks it there.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

August 13, 2009 #543

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy third anniversary!
A time for celebration and reflection.
Praised be those who live as they believe,
Pursuing through each act some deep connection.
Years refine what none can grasp or see.

There is in every love not two but three:
Happiness requires consecration,
Requires some sweet angel both conceive
Equally, the child of their relation,
Elf of the heart, who binds them spiritually.

© by Nicholas Gordon