Graduation Ought Not Be an End

May 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since this is a week when many colleges and universities have their graduation ceremonies, the theme for this week is graduation.

Today’s poem is a graduation poem about how what one learns is more important than the degree.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Graduation ought not be an end,

Replacing what within we might achieve.

After all, the good that we intend

Does much to serve the good that we receive.

Underneath the mask of a degree

A person must perform with just the skill,

The knowledge and the art that he or she

Internalized through pluck, hard work, and will.

On what we are will rest what we become,

Nor do we have much else to draw upon.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/grad7.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

May 15: To the Graduate Whose Life I Share

May 16: Graduation Shouldn’t Be Too Easy

May 17: Graduation Ought Not Be an End

Graduation Shouldn't Be Too Easy

May 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since this is a week when many colleges and universities have their graduation ceremonies, the theme for this week is graduation.

Today’s poem encourages students to take demanding courses on their way to a degree.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Graduation shouldn’t be too easy,

Reducing the repute of the degree.

Although some courses might make you feel queasy,

Dreams need stairs to reach reality.

Ultimately, what matters is what you

Are capable of, your knowledge and your skill.

These years are only worth what you can do;

If you can’t, no piece of paper will.

On you is laid the burden of your fate.

Now’s your chance to learn to bear the weight.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/grad13.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

May 15: To the Graduate Whose Life I Share

May 16: Graduation Shouldn’t Be Too Easy

To the Graduate Whose Life I Share

May 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since this is a week when many colleges and universities have their graduation ceremonies, the theme for this week is graduation.

Today’s poem is a graduation poem to a spouse.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To the graduate whose life I share,

On whose success I’ve laid the weight of mine:

The love and gratitude are always there;

However, on such special days they shine.

Enjoy your well-earned pomp and circumstance!

Graduations ought to be bejeweled,

Richly robed, as choreographed as dance,

A paean to a world by wisdom ruled.

Dearest soul, I find my joy in yours.

Underneath my pleasure is your smile.

As you shift your tassel*, my heart soars,

There is no inch of me that’s not applause,

Embracing you in spirit all the while.

*Graduates shift the tassel on their mortar boards, or special graduation hats, from right to left at the moment they are granted their degrees.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Graduation

May 15: To the Graduate Whose Life I Share

A Vase of Flowers in a Window Frame

May 14, 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 how a mother’s love lasts all one’s life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A vase of flowers in a window frame.

A house of gentle light amid dark leaves.

An ecstasy so sharp it feels like anguish,

The pull that makes our beeline an ellipse.

No transcendental morning's inspiration

So ravishes the things we never see.

We hear for all our lives a silent music

To which we dance unknowing through our time.

And even when we die, there is a beauty

Older than the cold December stars,

A part of us that waits behind the darkness

To take us once again into its arms.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/avase.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

May 11: Maybe Every Moment’s Meant to Be

May 12: A Mother Casts Her Dreams into the Sea

May 13: A Mother Serves Her Sugar

May 14: A Vase of Flowers in a Window Frame

A Mother Serves Her Sugar

May 13, 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 a mother’s need to prepare her child for independence.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A mother serves her sugar with

A bit of peppermint

To clarify the passages

That carry what she meant

When she first set to bear a soul

Quite separate from her own,

Whom she would cherish, yet must teach

To live and die alone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/amothe.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

May 11: Maybe Every Moment’s Meant to Be

May 12: A Mother Casts Her Dreams into the Sea

May 13: A Mother Serves Her Sugar

A Mother Casts Her Dreams into the Sea

May 12, 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 motherhood as a kind of immortality.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A mother casts her dreams into the sea;

We, the words sent bobbing towards the sun,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy.

Because she must conclude her melody

And fall back to the sweet dark hush of One,

A mother casts her dreams into the sea,

Hoping to cross that wild infinity

And on some infant shore again to run,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy

Outside the fiery circle of memory,

The howling surf, the incessant years undone ...

A mother casts her dreams into the sea

And then dissolves into a tapestry,

Her rolling, helpless drift again begun,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy

Afloat once more upon eternity,

Once more the alien fury, never done ...

Again, again, her dreams into the sea,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothca.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

May 11: Maybe Every Moment’s Meant to Be

May 12: A Mother Casts Her Dreams into the Sea

Maybe Every Moment's Meant to Be

May 11, 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 for a woman whose children miscarried.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe every moment’s meant to be.

One chooses in the dark and takes a path

That leads one to the wonder of what is.

How might one see another’s hand in this?

Each choice was a prediction in the past,

Revealing only what one wished to see.

Here and now remains a mystery.

One watches from one’s rock-bound coast the vast

Ocean of experience and bliss,

Deeper than the heart, wind-sculpted, free.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb15.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

May 11: Maybe Every Moment’s Meant to Be