People Are a People by Design

March 27, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Passover, which this year begins on the evening of March 27.

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

A Passover poem about how a national identity can be created and sustained:

People are a people by design,
Embracing who they were by who they are.
So does history become a meal,
A ritual that makes a memory real,
Calcifying what, beyond the bar,
Has not the substance of a glass of wine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/people.html. For more Passover poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Passover.
March 22: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale
March 23: Time After Time They Come to Destroy Us
March 24: Please Be Assured that What You Read Is True
March 25: Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder
March 26: Perhaps This Is No Time for Telling Tales
March 27: People Are a People by Design

Perhaps This Is No Time for Telling Tales

March 26, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Passover, which this year begins on the evening of March 27.

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

A Passover poem about the ethics of celebrating an escape from slavery when slavery still exists:

Perhaps this is no time for telling tales.
After all, the slaves are still not free.
So what if God once parted the Red Sea,
Saving us, when slavery still prevails?
Ought one turn to save those left behind?
Very few would face the Pharaoh's host,
Emerging from the sea with little lost,
Ravenous to kill who would be kind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/perha7.html. For more Passover poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Passover.
March 22: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale
March 23: Time After Time They Come to Destroy Us
March 24: Please Be Assured that What You Read Is True
March 25: Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder
March 26: Perhaps This Is No Time for Telling Tales

Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder

March 25, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Passover, which this year begins on the evening of March 27.

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

A Passover poem about the ritual of the Seder for non-religious Jews:

Perhaps your only ritual is the Seder,
All that's left of what was once a Jew.
Suppose you've found the rest's no longer you,
Still working on a self that surfaced later.
Oh, yes, this one last bit of times gone by,
Vividly alive in prayer and song,
Endures, although the past for which you long
Remains rooted in a faith you now deny.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/perha8.html. For more Passover poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Passover.
March 22: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale
March 23: Time After Time They Come to Destroy Us
March 24: Please Be Assured that What You Read Is True
March 25: Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder

Please Be Assured that What You Read Is True

March 24, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Passover, which this year begins on the evening of March 27.

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

A Passover poem about how myths become themselves historical truths:

Please be assured that what you read is true,
Although to some it may seem more symbolical.
Sometimes the myth itself becomes historical,
Sustained by being simply what one knew.
On Passover, we read the ancient story,
Very certain that what happens there
Embodies something true that all Jews share,
Remnant of when God revealed His glory.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/pleas5.html. For more Passover poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Passover.
March 22: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale
March 23: Time After Time They Come to Destroy Us
March 24: Please Be Assured that What You Read Is True