What Is the Sign of Love That Tells Me When

September 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is romantic love.

Today’s poem is a teenage love poem asking how one might know one is in love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

What is the sign of love that tells me when

A friendship and a crush are something more?

How can I know what life may have in store

When all the clues must lie beyond my ken?

How much happiness is love? And then

How much and long must it endure before

I recognize that strange and distant shore

Beyond which I won't have to ask again?

I do not know, but trust that when I do

The answer will surround me like old fields

On which the things I hunger for will grow.

For now I share the mystery with you,

Waiting for what young affection yields,

And for the time when both of us will know.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/whati2.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.

September 19: Dreams Do Come True

September 20: Gifts Are Not Always Free

September 21: Love Is Never Easy

September 22: Passion May Remain a Gift

September 23: What Is the Sign of Love ThatTells Me When

Passion May Remain a Gift

September 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is romantic love.

Today’s poem is a love poem about how love must come from mutual giving.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Passion may remain a gift,

But love is not for free.

To love and be loved two must give,

Or love is not to be.

Love is a decision made

Not once, but every day.

Two must move to set aside

The mountains in the way.

Two must act to take apart

The walls of me and you,

Just as in the act of love

One's joy brings joy to two.

Just as love's pure ecstasy

Makes others' joys our own,

Just so will love in daily life

Make sweet green fields of stone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.

September 19: Dreams Do Come True

September 20: Gifts Are Not Always Free

September 21: Love Is Never Easy

September 22: Passion May Remain a Gift

Love Is Never Easy

September 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is romantic love.

Today’s poem is a love poem about how love can transform life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love is never easy, but

It turns life into song.

There is no bit of circumstance

That love cannot transform.

There is no weary moment

Of anger or despair

That love cannot convert to grace

And render whole and fair.

How passionate the paradise

That comes from knowing well

That someone in your happiness

Finds pleasure for himself.

How sweet the gift of giving to

Someone who gives to you,

A selflessness that gives to self

More self than self is due.

With all the searing madness of

The world from day to day,

And all the dreary sadness that

No joy can take away,

There is one truth more beautiful

Than anyone can bear:

That two can trust that when they turn

They'll find the other there.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovei2.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.

September 19: Dreams Do Come True

September 20: Gifts Are  Not Always Free

September 21: Love Is Never Easy

Gifts Are Not Always Free

September 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is romantic love.

Today’s poem is a name and love poem about distinguishing between love as a gift and love as a burden.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Gifts are not always free.

A giver wants to know: Are you enjoying my gift?

Burdens can be sources of intense pleasure.

Recently, unable to distinguish between burdens and gifts,

Indian elephants dragged seventeen tons of teak logs over the Himalayas.

Each of us has made his or her own version of this mistake.

Love is a gift.

Burdens betray themselves by the rattle of their needs.

Each of us wants to know: Am I a burden or a gift?

Very few understand that to be a gift one must receive more than one gives,

Even while burdens come decked out in ribbons and bows.

Refusing a gift brings regret, not guilt.

Lingering doubts may be referred to a mirror.

Yesterday the elephants returned: happy, sweaty, and a good deal wiser.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.

September 19: Dreams Do Come True

September 20; Gifts Are Not Always Free

Dreams Do Come True

September 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is romantic love.

Today’s poem is a love poem about what to do when love longed dreamed of becomes a reality.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Dreams do come true, but only when

They make it through despair,

Limping into everyday

Transformed beyond repair.

No dream would be a dream if it

Could pass for something real,

Nor would we sail for paradise

Would it its shoals conceal.

So it is with love: the dream

Long longed for, now possessed,

Must be a dream no longer, but

An emperor undressed.

Stark naked it must come to us

In unaccustomed shame,

And we must take it in our arms

And love it all the same.

And we must love love as it is

That dreams might still come true,

Mangled into miracles

To make our lives anew.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.

September 19: Dreams Do Come True

Each Sacrifices What the Heart Loves Most

September 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is giving, in honor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which falls on September 13 and commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son.

Today’s poem is a poem for Eid al-Adha about sacrificing what one loves most.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Each sacrifices what the heart loves most,

Imitating Abraham when he

Delivered Isaac to the eternal host,

Although with heavy heart, yet faithfully.

Love does not grasp, but gives away all things,

Aware of something holy in its fire,

Destined to retain the gifts it brings,

Having first relinquished the desire,

As Allah gives one all one would require.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/eachsa.html. For more poems for Eid al-Adha, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/muslimpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Giving.

September 12: Thirty-Five

September 13: Every Moment Sings of Love and Beauty

September 14: Happiness Remains the Drug of Choice

September 15: One Cannot Make Another Happy

September 16: There Are for Giving Many Rationales

September 17: Even Sacrifice May Not Be Pure

September 18: Each Sacrifices What the HeartLoves Most

Even Sacrifice May Not Be Pure

September 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is giving, in honor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which falls on September 13 and commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son.

Today’s poem is a poem for Eid al-Adha about love as the proper motivation for sacrifice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Even sacrifice may not be pure,

Intended for the eye and not the heart.

Do, then, out of love make sacrifice

As Abraham once offered up his son.

Love of Allah is what will endure

As fire consumes each lacerated part,

Devouring all but love, that will suffice

However long the sacrifice goes on,

As years and lives through time's cold fingers run.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/evensa.html. For more poems for Eid al-Adha, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/muslimpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Giving.

September 12: Thirty-Five

September 13: Every Moment Sings of Love and Beauty

September 14: Happiness Remains the Drug of Choice

September 15: One Cannot Make Another Happy

September 16: There Are for Giving Many Rationales

September 17: Even Sacrifice May Not Be Pure