Mothers Must Make Meaning Have More Meaning

May 9, 2013 #736

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Mother’s Day 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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mothers must make meaning have more meaning,
Opening a window onto love.
The world begins with them, and so what they
Have in their hearts is what life has to say,
Even if the years quite different prove,
Reversing what, retained, might be redeeming,
Sense that would make sense of every day.

© by Nicholas Gordon

http://youtu.be/brAN8DD8_ME

Faith Is What One Cannot Know

May 2, 2013 #735

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about faith.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Faith is what one cannot know,
But one decides is true,
As though one looked out on a wall
And painted on a view.

One knows the provenance of one's
Belief, but truth is more
Than stating with some certainty
What stands outside one's door.

Truth has many voices
That speak to mind and heart
In many languages derived
From science, myth, or art.

Faith is just one inner voice
That sings in harmony
With what the mind can comprehend
And what the eye can see.

And if one feels God's presence where
No proof can find its way,
Yes, that is real, as real as grass,
And true in its own way.

© by Nicholas Gordon

How Can So Little Time Hold So Much Life

April 25, 2013 #734

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a third 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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How can so little time hold so much life?
All these changes in just three short years!
Praised be those who put aside their fears,
Pleased to live and love as man and wife.
Yet so much change without brings change within.
The person who once was no longer is.
Home is ours, no longer hers or his.
Infants demand more than one has been.
Rivers are much muddier than streams,
Deeper and more rich with life than dreams.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Endless Earths

April 18, 2013 #733

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Earth Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Endless Earths! An infinite number spins
Around their suns, full of lusty life,
Revolving islands, with ravenous creatures rife,
The untouched Edens waiting for our sins.
How might we treat them better than our own
Despoiled Earth, once a garden grove,
As, banished to the stars, we restless rove,
Yearning for a place that feels like home.

© by Nicholas Gordon

April 11, 2013 #732

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a name 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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Afaf is chaste because she is kind,
Fenced off from lovers by the gates of her mind,
Awaiting the one who will be there for life,
For she would his gift be – an unopened wife.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Don't Return the Tennis Ball

April 4, 2013 #731

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about love.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Don't return the tennis ball –
Just let it skip away.
Remember, bickering's a game
That it takes two to play.

Let the anger dissipate
Like fog beneath the sun.
For at the end of lovers' wars,
One finds that no one's won.

Oh, yes, one cannot help sometimes
To let the fury flow
Like lava forced up from the earth
By pressure deep below.

But each should let the other rant
And rave till passions pall,
Then bend down politely to
Retrieve the tennis ball.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Even After Two Millennia

March 28, 2013 #730

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Easter.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Even after two millennia,
A restive world remembers your rebirth.
So must your tale so touch a grieving heart
That all the sins of those who take your part,
Each priest who preys and prays for all he's worth,
Render you no less a loving savior.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Palates Can Be Palettes of the Soul

March 21, 2013 #729

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Passover.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Palates can be palettes of the soul,
As tastes can paint a picture of the past.
So might ritual foods make memories last,
Summoning up fond fragments of the whole.
Of matzah, then, charoset, bitter herb,
Vivid harbingers of what has been,
Each Pesach sing, and with your tongue again
Recall the revelation that they serve.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Sing of Ireland, That Salad Bowl

March 14, 2013 #728

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for St. Patrick's Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sing of Ireland, that salad bowl!
The greens are tossed with bits of yellow and brown.
Perhaps the tossing might make some folks frown,
Although the taste be tangy to the soul.
There is no past for which the bells don't toll,
Regardless how its ways are handed down.
In time its heroes, once of great renown,
Come faded to the fun house of the whole.
Know, then, that the Ireland of old
'Ere long will be what none alive remember,
Save for remnants treasured by a few.
Deep within the heartache that takes hold,
An ancient ecstasy becomes an ember,
Yielding over years to Irelands new.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Mothers Must Make Mornings Seem Worthwhile

March 7, 2013 #727

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Mothering Sunday (British Mother's Day).

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mothers must make mornings seem worthwhile,
Offering a life of love and beauty.
The music in their hearts becomes the song
Humming in their children all life long,
Enduring legacy, exacting duty,
Requiring an honest inner smile
Sustained by love – well-tended, willed, and strong.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

February 28, 2013 #726

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a play on words.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There has to be some tension in attention
And something supple in a supplication.
One finds little content in contention
And too few revels in a revelation.

An insight ought to mind and heart incite
And alter what one worships at one's altar.
At times one needs a rite to get things right,
But then could use a salter for one's psalter.

Sound advice can often come through sound,
And payment made in kind, when hearts are kind.
Found relations new relations found,
Would one not mind a playful turn of mind.

© by Nicholas Gordon