Yes, There Is a Lot One Need Atone for

 A poem for Yom Kippur about the need to atone for what you failed to do as much as for what you did:

 

Yes, there is a lot one need atone for.

One is in this pickle every year.

Maybe progress is too much to ask for,

Knowing how few angels live down here.

In fact, one must atone for what one didn't,

Perhaps as much or more than what one did.

Perhaps one's most egregious evil isn't

Understood till one lifts up the lid,

Revealing what one's life of privilege hid.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Allégro. By Emmit Fenn. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

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

Estimated Wait Time Is Forever

 

A poem for Eid al-Fitr, which occurs at the end of Ramadan, about faith as a journey rather than a visitation.

Estimated wait time is forever.
In faith, The Moment neither comes nor goes.
Does one dress one's thoughts in what seems clever,
Allowing for a frequent change of clothes?
Let love translate for your timeless soul.
Faith's a journey, not a visitation.
If one would risk a purpose and a role,
Then one should live by love's interpretation,
Rendering each partial person whole.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Audio and Video Music: Wander. By Emmit Fenn. Music free to use at YouTube.

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/estima.html. For more poems for Ramadan, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramadanpoems.html .

Here Are Festive Flowers for Your Room

 An Easter friendship poem about the limits of friendship:

Here are festive flowers for your room,
A spray of springtime on your bare night table:
Placed upon a place within your view,
Placed where best to light your harried heart.
Yet my blossoms can’t dispel your gloom,
Even were they many times more able.
All that gifts from loving friends can do
Sings just one unaccompanied inner part.
The music cannot come from aught but you,
Evangelist beside the empty tomb,
Rejoicing in the grace of life and art.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Forever Yours. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/herear.html. For more Easter poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html .

Rapture Comes Most Easily Within

April 13, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Ramadan, which begins on April 13.

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

A poem for Ramadan on the need for discipline to free oneself for prayer:

Rapture comes most easily within
A discipline that divvies up the day,
Making time for timelessness, and space,
A rolled-up rectangle holy anyplace,
Dear temple of delight where one might pray,
Assigned some sweet-tongued verses to begin
Now hallowing this hollow cask of clay.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/raptur.html. For more poems about Ramadan, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramadanpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Ramadan.
April 12: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World
April 13: Rapture Comes Most Easily Within

Ramadan Reminds Us that the World

April 12, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Ramadan, which begins on April 13.

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

A poem for Ramadan about the role of the holiday in reminding us of the the evanescence of our earthly existence:

Ramadan reminds us that the world
Around us is a temporary place
Made for an equivocal embrace
As we ride this rock through vastness hurled.
Dance upon the Earth with joy and laughter
As long as you remember what comes after.
Nor will you find your home in time and space.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramad2.html. For more poems about Ramadan, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramadanpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Ramadan.
April 12: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World

Selves Are Quite the Opposite of Souls

March 20, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is St. Patrick’s Day, which is celebrated on March 17.

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

A St. Patrick’s Day poem about the difference between one’s self and one’s soul:

Selves are quite the opposite of souls,
As what might change is never what must be.
In one we find pure light; the other, coals,
Now burning, now burned out, now memory.
The self is something that can grow and change,
Perhaps love virtue, perhaps descend to sin,
Alive to faith or innerly estranged,
The lonely witness to what one has been.
Remember that the soul is also you,
Is what is, which is eternal love,
Called to love by love you know is true,
Knowing what sheer grace might through you move.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/selves.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: St. Patrick’s Day.
March 15: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been
March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland
March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland
March 18: So Let Them Be, Who Have Had Sex with Children
March 19: Self Becomes Less Self the More Self-Served
March 20: Selves Are Quite the Opposite of Souls