Your Hazel Green Eyes

March 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which falls on March 20.

Today’s poem is a love poem comparing a loved one’s eyes to spring woods.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Your hazel green eyes

Are like woods on a warm spring day

When leaves have just unfolded

And slender branches thick with sap

Bend under the weight of songful birds.

I look into your eyes and see

A timeless world of sun and breezes,

Of shade and dappled love,

As I gaze from my sunlit doorway.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

March 21: Your Hazel Green Eyes

Spring

March 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which is happening today, March 20.

Today’s poem is about the coming of spring as an infinite moment.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Spring knows well the workings of the wheel,

Past winters past and winters still to come.

Released from time, the moment spreads its wings;

Infinite, it leaves behind all things,

Neither here nor there, nor to nor from,

Grace reborn within what we call real.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

The Lord Is the Lord of All Nations

March 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is about religion and race from the point of view of someone of mixed race.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The Lord is the Lord of all nations;

I, of all nations, the child.

White and black, yellow, and brown:

All rivers flow into my sea.

I, of all nations, the child

Melded in passionate love.

All rivers flow into my sea,

Joined in the blood of America.

Melded in passionate love,

I turn to those still behind walls,

Joined in the blood of America,

And tell them that love is the Lord's.

I turn to those still behind walls,

White and black, yellow, and brown,

And tell them that love is the Lord's!

The Lord is the Lord of all nations!

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 18: Jorge

March 19: The Lord Is the Lord of All Nations

Jorge

March 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a name poem about how, for an immigrant, national identity is elusive.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Jorge is not quite George, nor is he Horhay.

Old or young, he'll always be between.

Rivers flow through boundaries to the sea,

Guided by the law of gravity,

Eroding the land as they carve their winding ways.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 18: Jorge

So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a Saint Patrick's Day poem about letting go the dream of a purely Irish Ireland.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So let it go, that mythic Ireland!

Treasure the past, but let it, let it go!

Perhaps it was at one time wholly our land --

All of it -- but that was long ago.

The time when states were nations is now ending.

Races know no borders; people move

In search of life, their clothes and colors blending

Cultures that must now their presence prove.

Know, then, that not politics, but art,

'Mid neighbors various in faith and race,

Sustains a people's history and heart,

Dependent more on ritual than place.

As on St. Patrick's Day we march in green,

Yet we must let go the blood-drenched dream.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/soleti.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

So I'm the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is from St. Patrick to those possessed of racial hatred about the need for love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So I’m the patron saint of Ireland!

Then let me be for it a sign of peace.

Perhaps few know that I was born in England

And always thought of England as my home.

There was no England then, of course, nor Ireland.

Regardless, here’s an irony that should

Inhabit those possessed by racial hatred:

Come to love even those who wrong you,

Knowing I was an English slave in Ireland.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/soimth.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

Let There Be One Race -- The Human Race

March 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem celebrates one humanity with a variety of religions and identities.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Let there be one race – the human race,

And let the whole Earth be one common space.

Let all who live together in this place

Pursue in peace their chosen path to grace.

Let every culture celebrate its past

So that its precious way of life might last,

And that its legacy across the vast

Dark future fields like hand-sown seeds be cast.

Let truth be woven like a tapestry,

And let each slender thread well rendered be

By those whose passionate hearts and minds are free

To look and then make sense of what they 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/letth6.html. For more poems about nationality and race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race