Poem of the Week

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Motherhood Is a Generic Term

May 10, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem about the wide reach of the term “motherhood.”

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Motherhood is a generic term,

One that is applied to more than mothers.

The honorific’s something one can earn,

Having loved in ways that nurture others.

Enduring love for children is a song

Requiring only will for one to sing,

Having well-versed voices sing along

Over time, till one’s bright brood takes wing.

Oh, yes, one can also mother birds,

Dogs, cats, horses, love that needs no words.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/moth15.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

May 9: Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

May 10: Motherhood Is a Generic Term

Monday, May 8, 2017

Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

May 9, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem about the extraordinary strength of the emotions of motherhood.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe when one enters the darkened room,

Opening the door in a narrow burst of light,

The child at last blissfully asleep,

Here, now, the furtive kiss upon the cheek,

Exiting slowly, exquisitely quietly, the night

Restored as the door is cracked against the gloom …

Here, now, the freedom, the sense of sheer relief,

One feels the grace of love like an anguished chord,

Oceanic, overwhelming, like grief

Doubled into joy, too real for words.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb14.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

May 9: Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Maybe There's a Reason for It All

May 8, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem about the beautiful music of love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe there's a reason for it all.

Or maybe not. There doesn't have to be.

The music is enough, a melody

Heard coming from behind the Western Wall,

Echo of enduring ecstasy,

Remnant of a love beyond recall,

So beautiful one must sing harmony.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb13.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Proverbs on Acceptance

May 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a set of ten proverbs on acceptance.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

PROVERBS ON ACCEPTANCE

1. Acceptance is like a calm sea upon which the will can sail smoothly, whereas upon a rebellious sea the will can barely make headway against the wind.

2. One can accept evil, even one’s own evil, as inseparable from life without surrendering to it, simultaneously embracing those who are evil and vigorously opposing them.

3. Acceptance of desire – that is, feeling it vividly with neither guilt nor shame – paradoxically frees one from it, so that one need no longer surrender to it or struggle against it, but can simply act according to reason and love.

4. Acceptance of oneself is like becoming one’s own parent, loving oneself unconditionally while attempting to guide one’s way.

5. One can either dance across a rock-strewn field or curse the rocks as one stumbles and weaves. To the rocks it is all the same.

6. One of the least satisfactory things one can do is wish one were doing something else.

7. One ought not worry about getting what one wants, but rather about wanting what one gets.

8. The secret of happiness is simple – if one is alive and not in pain, one is happy. But only if one knows it.

9. The quality of one’s life is determined more by attitude than by altitude.

10. Acceptance is not acquiescence. What is surrendered is not the will but the heart.

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

This week’s theme: Acceptance

May 1: For Those Who Love, Things Tend to Matter More

May 2: Fortune Is like Music Minus One

May 3: Future Selves Are Built on Past Mistakes

May 4: Fortune Leaves No Reason for Regret

May 5: Forty-Seven3

May 6: Forty-Three3

May 7: Proverbs on Acceptance

Forty-Three3

May 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about choosing to see the good in one’s life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-three has been well served by fortune.

Often, though, the trick is just to know it.

Reasons may abound to feel abused.

To feel blessed is like listening to music,

Yearning to hear the song that one is hearing.

There is in all lives much that is endearing.

How could one not turn to it and choose it?

Remember that sweet choice when life's confused,

Embracing what one has and quick to show it,

Each love one touches with a generous passion.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/43c.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Acceptance

May 1: For Those Who Love, Things Tend to Matter More

May 2: Fortune Is like Music Minus One

May 3: Future Selves Are Built on Past Mistakes

May 4: Fortune Leaves No Reason for Regret

May 5: Forty-Seven3

May 6: Forty-Three3

Friday, May 5, 2017

Forty-Seven3

May 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about accepting even non-acceptance.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-seven contemplates her fate,
Old enough to know just what is what,
Revisiting the windings of the way
That led her to this not-unwelcome state,
Yet yearning now and then for what is not.

So does one listen for the lilt of longing
Even when essentially at peace,
Vested in what one knows will decay,
Enduring, dreaming, suffering, desiring.
Nor would one for one’s soul such music cease.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/47c.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Acceptance

May 1: For Those Who Love, Things Tend to Matter More

May 2: Fortune Is like Music Minus One

May 3: Future Selves Are Built on Past Mistakes

May 4: Fortune Leaves No Reason for Regret

May 5: Forty-Seven3