Anisa

February 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a name and friendship poem about someone who can't comprehend using friendship for personal gain.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Anisa is a universal friend,

Nor does she need a reason for her smile.

Intimacy is for her a style

So natural she cannot comprehend

A world in which such warmth might serve an end.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/anisa.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

January 30: Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

January 31: Twenty-Seven

February 1: Thirty-Seven

February 2: Ainsley

February 3: There Is No Better Mentor than a Cat

February 4: Anisa

There Is No Better Mentor than a Cat

February 3, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number and friendship poem comparing our need for friendship to that of a pet cat.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no better mentor than a cat,

Here for little else than giving love,

Intended as a playmate and a friend,

Roles that all should play if in the end

They would know joy they could be certain of.

Yet some look down their noses at all that.

No one need one’s deepest need defend.

If one’s alive, then one will needy prove.

Nor need one hold one’s need at one remove,

Enduring needlessly an empty lap.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ther39.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

January 30: Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

January 31: Twenty-Seven

February 1: Thirty-Seven

February 2: Ainsley

February 3: There Is No Better Mentor than a Cat

Ainsley

February 2, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a name and friendship poem about a friend who is like home.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Ainsley is a place called home,

In which one finds a fire,

Needing warmth and friendship to

Sustain one's life-desire.

Let him, let him give you space,

Ever safe in his embrace,

Yet ever free to roam.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ainsle.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

January 30: Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

January 31: Twenty-Seven

February 1: Thirty-Seven

February 2: Ainsley

Thirty-Seven7

February 1, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number and friendship poem about the ancestral roots of online friendships.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-seven shares her life online,

Having much to say to her close friends.

Intimacy makes the heart unfold,

Radiant beneath love's liquid gold,

The sunlight that a simple thumbs up sends,

Yielding of sweet sympathy a sign.

Sing, then, of love that's neither yours nor mine,

Enduring as a gift none comprehends,

Vested in our character of old,

Embrace on which our sanity depends,

Now virtual, served deftly by design.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/37g.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

January 30: Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

January 31: Twenty-Seven

February 1: Thirty-Seven

Twenty-Seven4

January 31, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number and friendship poem about online friendships and the interdependence of selves.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Twenty-seven's often found online

Writing to her followers and friends.

Each thought leaps from her fingers into time,

Now urgent in a stream that twists and bends,

The conduit on which the heart depends,

Yearning for a grace it can't define.

Selves are not themselves till they combine,

Each needing something yours to mirror mine,

Vetting visions through another's lens,

Ending where who knows a person ends,

Never more than I nor less than thine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/27d.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

January 30: Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

January 31: Twenty-Seven

Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

January 30, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the mutual need for others in order to be oneself.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Friends are prisoners of expectation,

Reflected in the mirror of their need.

Instead of being happy on their own,

Each knows that one cannot survive alone,

Nor think unless another plants the seed.

Dependent all for selfhood on relation,

So to be fed, must one the other feed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/frien2.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

January 30: Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

Meditation Is an Empty Room

January 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem describes the experience of meditation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Meditation is an empty room.

Enter it, and you will be at peace.

Desire and decay, blight and bloom,

In you for just this timeless time will cease.

These are moments one can simply be

A windless lake, a mirror to the sky,

The selfless self, in whose infinity

Immersed, one will become an I-less eye.

One’s thoughts, fatigue, desire knock on the door.

No matter, the wind whispers from the shore.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/medita.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

January 23: Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by the Moon

January 24: The World Is Not Sufficiently in Order

January 25: There Are Those Who Shy Away from Being

January 26: Tolerance Is Hard to Tolerate

January 27: There Is No Point in Being Merely Clever

January 28: Take Me, for Example: I’m Pretty Attractive, No

January 29: Meditation Is an Empty Room

Take Me, for Example: I'm Pretty Attractive, No

January 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is a Chinese, or Lunar New Year poem for this year’s Chinese New Year, The Year of the Rooster, from the rooster’s point of view.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Take me, for example: I’m pretty attractive, no?

How can people say I shouldn’t flaunt it?

Every woman everywhere I go

Yearns for me. I cannot help but want it.

Even so, they say I am conceited,

Arrogant, and too full of myself.

Rest assured, they’re jealous and feel cheated,

Or they would take their own goods off the shelf!

For me there is no shame in showing off

The beauty of my body and my voice,

Having enough ego to put forth

Each morning some fine fanfare of my choice.

Revealing what I have to give the world

Ought not be a cause for disapproval.

One should keep one’s majesties unfurled,

Singing as one is through glory hurled

Towards one’s curt and ultimate removal.

Exuberance in life cannot be wrong.

Remember well my loud, well-crafted song.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/takem2.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

January 23: Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by the Moon

January 24: The World Is Not Sufficiently in Order

January 25: There Are Those Who Shy Away from Being

January 26: Tolerance Is Hard to Tolerate

January 27: There Is No Point in Being Merely Clever

January 28: Take Me, for Example: I’m PrettyAttractive, No

There Is No Point in Being Merely Clever

January 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is a Chinese, or Lunar New Year poem for The Year of the Monkey, from the monkey’s point of view.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no point in being merely clever,

However much one likes to call the tune.

Each bit of insight leads one to forever,

Yielding thoughts that make the moment bloom.

Even so, some prostitute the mind

As they exchange intelligence for things,

Rewarded more than amply, but resigned

Over time to living without wings.

For me the mind is for perceiving beauty,

The glory and the radiance of being.

However cleverly one does one’s duty,

Each labor won is leisure lost for seeing.

Maybe one should use one’s mind for good,

Obliged by conscience to serve others’ needs.

No doubt. But while doing as one should,

Know where such self-sacrificing leads.

Each life’s a light that is for moments lit.

Yet one can spend them in the infinite.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ther38.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

January 23: Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by the Moon

January 24: The World Is Not Sufficiently in Order

January 25: There Are Those Who Shy Away from Being

January 26: Tolerance Is Hard to Tolerate

January 27: There Is No Point in Being Merely Clever

Tolerance Is Hard to Tolerate

January 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is a Chinese, or Lunar New Year poem for The Year of the Boar, from the boar’s point of view.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Tolerance is hard to tolerate,

Hinting, as it can, of condescension.

Even so, it has a good intention,

Yielding an alternative to hate.

Embracing difference truly can create

An overwhelming love for all expression,

Resulting in a singular impression

Open to all sides of a debate.

For me, the truth's a wilderness of stars,

The universe revealed in all its glory.

How can one choose just one small bit of sky,

Estranged by one's beliefs from all the rest?

Being isn't bounded by one's bars;

Oceans aren't summed up in one story.

All that is will inundate one's why,

Removing walls long laid across one's quest.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/tolera.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

January 23: Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by the Moon

January 24: The World Is Not Sufficiently in Order

January 25: There Are Those Who Shy Away from Being

January 26: Tolerance Is Hard to Tolerate

There Are Those Who Shy Away from Being

January 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is a Chinese, or Lunar New Year poem for The Year of the Rabbit, from the rabbit’s point of view.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There are those who shy away from being,

However smart or talented, the leader,

Each eagerly behind the scenes, agreeing

Yet again to serve all those who need her.

Everyone is wary of such tension

As being in the spotlight must entail,

Reigning over chaos and dissension,

One who takes the blame when others fail.

For me it is impossible to think

That I for just one moment might be there --

Head of something headed for some brink,

Etched frozen in the flashbulb's frigid glare.

Rabbits tend to run -- that's what they do,

Acting well only when well hidden.

Best if you know best what's best for you --

Better off the bidder or the bidden.

I know myself, and so am satisfied

To be the one backstage, where I can hide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ther28.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

January 23: Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by the Moon

January 24: The World Is Not Sufficiently in Order

January 25: There Are Those Who Shy Away from Being

The World Is Not Sufficiently in Order

January 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is a Chinese, or Lunar New Year poem for The Year of the Dog, from the dog’s point of view.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The world is not sufficiently in order,

However much one wishes it were so.

Everyone likes to think that they are loyal,

Yet find that there are times they cannot be,

Even as I’m loyal by design.

All I want and do is by design,

Reducing what disorder there might be,

Offering the hope that, if I'm loyal,

Fortune will be fair, and what I sow

Today I'll reap in time and proper order.

Heroes are the sentinels of order,

Ever vigilant to live just so:

Dependable, consistent, honest, loyal

Overseers of what ought to be,

Given the chaos deep in the design.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thewo4.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

January 23: Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by the Moon

January 24: The World Is not Sufficiently inOrder

Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by the Moon

January 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is about luck and fate, and what a person might do about them.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Luck is like a tide pulled by the moon,

Undulating through the undertow.

None can tell how far that tide might go,

Afloat upon the wash's wind-blown spume.

Remember, then, each year to celebrate

New turnings of the tide that bears us all,

Each to ends no flailing can forestall,

Whether good or ill, the choice of fate.

Yet knowing well one's wishes face the wind,

Even so, one does what one can do,

Alert to rituals that spirits woo,

Rendering what renders them benign.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/luckis.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

January 23: Luck Is like a Tide Pulled by theMoon

Seventy-Five

January 22, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is justice, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, which falls on January 16.

Today’s poem is a number poem about someone who devotes his life to justice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Seventy-five sustains an active life,

Engaging in the turmoil of his time.

Voices must be raised in speech and song

Embracing right, excoriating wrong,

Needed to cut through the mental grime

That veils one's vision of systemic strife.

Yet power comes to those whose will is strong.

For him the fight continues hard and long

In every vale where suffering is rife,

Vested in beliefs that make life shine

Even as he walks the picket line.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/75.html. For more poems about justice and other political topics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Justice

January 16: Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore

January 17: Justice Is as Justice Does

January 18: Justice Isn’t Only in a Courtroom

January 19: Justice Is the Antidote for Vengeance

January 20: Make of Me a Hero

January 21: Even So, We Did What We Believed In

January 22: Seventy-Five

Even So, We Did What We Believed In

January 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is justice, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, which falls on January 16.

Today’s poem is about justice in the case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed on July 19, 1953, for conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Even so, we did what we believed in:

Treason, yes, perhaps, but with good cause.

History will judge by its own laws,

Each act within the sunlight of its season.

Love was what inspired us, a reason

As pure as any saint in Satan's jaws.

Nor was the god we worshipped through those wars

Demonized, as later all would see him.

Justice would not just sustain our guilt,

Undoing those who would undo a wrong,

Leaving us in lucid infamy.

Instead, it would remember what we willed

Under the illusion of a song

So beautiful it would the chained earth free.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/rosenb.html. For more poems about justice and other political topics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Justice

January 16: Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore

January 17: Justice Is as Justice Does

January 18: Justice Isn’t Only in a Courtroom

January 19: Justice Is the Antidote for Vengeance

January 20: Make of Me a Hero

January 21: Even So, We Did What We Believed In

Make of Me a Hero

January 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is justice, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, which falls on January 16.

Today’s poem is a poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, written while Barak Obama was President.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Make of me a hero, but I was

A failure in what mattered most to me.

Remember well the ill that sainthood does,

Taking holiness for victory.

I think we are as far away as ever,

Not from equal laws but equal lives.

Little has been done to make life better,

Unless you like the shift to guns from knives.

The icon of my face is now a mask

Hiding the destruction of the poor.

Each day is worse for millions than the last.

Raging unregarded is a war.

Know, then, though our president is black,

I would march again, could I come back,

No icon, but a loving, peaceful scourge,

Gathering strength where race and class converge.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/juslov.html. For more poems about justice and other political topics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Justice

January 16: Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore

January 17: Justice Is as Justice Does

January 18: Justice Isn’t Only in a Courtroom

January 19: Justice Is the Antidote for Vengeance

January 20: Make of Me a Hero

Justice Is the Antidote for Vengeance

January 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is justice, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, which falls on January 16.

Today’s poem is about justice and vengeance.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Justice is the antidote for vengeance,

Undoing the tight knot of rage and pain.

Symmetry is ever its ideal,

The balanced grief that might the grievance seal,

In point of fact not easy to attain.

Cool heads and burning hearts must shape a penance

Equal to the honor of the slain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/justic.html. For more poems about justice and other political topics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Justice

January 16: Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore

January 17: Justice Is as Justice Does

January 18: Justice Isn’t Only in a Courtroom

January 19: Justice Is the Antidote forVengeance

Justice Isn't Only in a Courtroom

January 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is justice, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, which falls on January 16.

Today’s poem is about the many aspects of justice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Justice isn’t only in a courtroom.

It has to do with wages, healthcare, schools.

It has to do with races more than rules.

It has to do with class as well as classrooms.

It has to do with the reward for labor.

The market is efficient but not just.

A just State sets some limits on its lust,

And ameliorates the brunt of its behavior.

It has to do with prejudice and hate,

With opening crucial doors to one’s own kind

And leaving those with differences behind,

Then blaming their condition for their fate.

It has to do with hearts as well as laws,

And with how many would take up its cause.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/justi3.html. For more poems about justice and other political topics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Justice

January 16: Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore

January 17: Justice Is as Justice Does

January 18: Justice Isn’t Only in a Courtroom

Justice Is as Justice Does

January 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is justice, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, which falls on January 16.

Today’s poem is about how history affects justice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Justice is as justice does.

Under is, is always was,

Singing songs that shape the mind,

That render justice less than blind.

If justice could be bias free,

Courts would work inhumanly.

Each judge responds to history.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/justi2.html. For more poems about justice and other political topics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Justice

January 16: Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore

January 17: Justice Is as Justice Does

Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore

January 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is justice, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, which falls on January 16.

Today’s poem compares the political movement for justice to waves breaking on the shore.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Movements are like waves upon the shore

As they break across the yielding sand,

Rushing ravenously up, and then withdraw,

Though not before remodeling the land.

If change awaits high tide, so let it be.

Nor will waves cease to break when tides are low.

Let us fight for justice ceaselessly,

Uplifted by the seaward undertow.

There is no disappointment in my song,

However much injustice still remains.

Each generation needs to come on strong,

Reckoning the incremental gains.

Know that I am proud of what we’ve won

In spite of all the lives and labor lost.

No cause well worth one’s love is ever done.

Good is good regardless of the cost.

Justice is a wave that breaks, and then

Returns, returns, again, again, again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/moveme.html. For more poems about justice and other political topics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Justice

January 16: Movements Are like Waves upon the Shore