Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem for a park ranger, whose job is to help people enjoy the beauty of the Earth.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Tell the world how lovely is the Earth.

Hear, O World! The Earth! The Earth is lovely!

Introduce the guests to their own home.

Remind them, please, that everything's on loan,

That what they borrow they should not use roughly,

Yielding back a jewel of equal worth.

Find words to give them words that are their own.

One can be a midwife of rebirth.

Undo with patience people in a hurry,

Restoring melodies they then can hone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is theEarth

At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the beauty of sailing.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

At evening the boats crowd towards shore,

The yachtsmen eager for a night of talk

In bars and cafes, weary of the wind.

At dawn they drift back into the harbor

And sail loosely scattered into the bay.

From shore there is nothing more beautiful:

A schooner moves reluctant with the tide,

Sails taut, yet trailing the current,

Hung as if absorbed in meditation;

Or a sloop leaning into the water,

Ropes groaning, skin cracked in salt and sun--

Why does it do battle with the wind?

In winter, white with moonlight, the harbor

Holds nothing in the darkness of its arms.

The boats await the coming of the yachtsmen,

Who once again will fill the bay with grace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd TowardsShore

Searching for Significance

November 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is about how the desire for political change can lead to violence.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Searching for significance,

One finds a bloody trail

Leading to a sea of bones

Upon a sun-drenched shore.

In the end there's no defense

For something that must fail,

As politicians work the phones

To dredge up one vote more.

All social schemes eventually,

Besieged, must turn to those

Who make a livelihood of death

Serving unchecked zeal.

For those who would change history

Unleash a world of woes

Upon those who, with bated breath,

Wait for hearts to heal.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

November 11: Proverbs for Legislators

November 12: Proverbs on the State

November 13: Searching for Significance

Proverbs on the State

November 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on the nature of the State.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. The end of the State is security: of property and person; from conquest, injury, hunger, exposure, and injustice.

2. To obtain security, citizens cede a portion of their liberty. This "social contract" is agreed to every time a citizen recognizes the legitimacy of the State.

3. States are legitimate, therefore, to the extent to which they provide security.

4. States rule through violence, either exercised or threatened. The degree of violence varies inversely with the degree of legitimacy; that is, the more security a state provides, the less violence it needs to rule.

5. States are also, and paradoxically, instruments of oppression, enforcing laws and practices that transfer wealth to the ruling class.

6. These contradictory visions of the State--as provider of security and as oppressor--are and have always been simultaneously true. The tension between them is played out in every decision, act, and pronouncement of government.

7. A state that is too oppressive loses legitimacy so completely that no amount of violence can prevent its overthrow. A state that is too just loses the support of the ruling class, which engineers a change either in policy or in government. Thus all states exist somewhere on a continuum between these two extremes. This is true regardless of their form of government.

8. The advantage of democracy is that the regular replacement of government by majority rule mitigates oppression. The disadvantage is that weak governments may fail to make citizens sufficiently secure.

9. To survive, democracy must provide enough security to make the relative weakness of a divided and restrained government worth the increase in liberty and justice. Otherwise, citizens will be willing to cede additional liberty in return for additional security, and democracy will fail.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

November 11: Proverbs for Legislators

November 12: Proverbs on the State

Proverbs for Legislators

November 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs for legislators.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Law is a necessary evil.

2. Pass as few laws as possible, consistent with the demands of justice and the maintenance of order.

3. Where custom is sufficient, there is no need for law.

4. Do not pass laws that cannot, or will not, be enforced, for such breed contempt for both the law and the State.

5. Penalties must be minimally sufficient to deter infractions, given adequate enforcement. Less renders the law ineffective; more inflicts unnecessary pain.

6. There is an inverse proportion between the severity necessary to deter infractions and the certainty of punishment.

7. Enshrine your principles in constitutions, codify your common sense in laws, and leave the rest to regulation.

8. Even more than on your wisdom, the legitimacy of the State depends on your integrity.

9. In public life, integrity requires not only an honest heart but an honest face.

10. Your primary object must always be not the satisfaction of your constituents but the continued legitimacy of the State, for upon that depends the welfare, even the survival, of us all.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

November 11: Proverbs for Legislators

Fifty-Eight2

November 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is a number poem about someone for whom the joy of life is motivation for political action.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-eight comes often to the table,

Intent on the conundrums of the day.

For her the chance that there she might be able

To shape the world for good in some small way

Yields pleasure that no hunger can allay.

Even as she yearns for peace and justice,

In her the simple moment brings delight,

Gift of being, palpable and lustrous,

However strewn upon the field of night,

The reason and the rage for doing right.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/58b.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

Even When There's Little Choice, We Choose

November 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is an Election Day poem about the preciousness of the right to vote.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Even when there's little choice, we choose,

Lest we lose the habit of our duty.

Ever tempted to the rite refuse,

Come the day, we recognize its beauty.

There is no greater dignity than this:

In each an equal sense of sovereignty,

Ownership not easy to dismiss,

Nothing less than what makes people free.

Do, then, exercise this sovereign right

As though it could be lost, as well it might,

Yielding in small steps that few can see.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, WeChoose