Saturday, July 29, 2017

Here We Have a Little Bit of Eden

July 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a fourth anniversary poem in which married love preserves the innocence of Eden.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Here we have a little bit of Eden,
An innocence deliberately detained.
Praised be love, that holds the heel of heaven,
Preserving what would else escape from pain,
Yet now renews the heart again, again.

For love depends upon a tended garden
Older than the myth of Adam's fall.
Underneath the usual confusion,
Resisting the implacable illusion
That makes of love a dream beyond recall,
Here it lives within the garden wall.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/herew3.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Gardens
July 27: Twenty-Eight3
July 28: Sixty-Seven2
July 29: Here We Have a Little Bit of Eden

Friday, July 28, 2017

Sixty-Seven2

July 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about a private garden’s public good.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-seven cultivates her garden,
Invested in the beauty of the Earth.
Xerophyte or hydrophyte, her plants
Thrive heartily, unconscious of their worth,
Yielding grace that lifts life’s loneliest burdens.

So does the private serve the public good.
Each gives gifts to all, for good or ill.
Vision is a gift the garden grants,
Enduring through another’s mind and will.
Nor can one see, except as others would.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/67b.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Gardens
July 27: Twenty-Eight3
July 28: Sixty-Seven2

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Twenty-Eight3

July 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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


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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Twenty-eight enjoys a busy morning
Working unabated in her garden.
Each tiny plant is years away from bloom,
Needing now the gift of ample room
To grow before the ground begins to harden.
Yet there is much to savor in this dawning.

Each year the winter whistles its chill warning,
Inviting her to lay aside her burden,
Glimpse unsought of universal doom.
However, she knows well her inner guerdon:
The passion that each year she will resume.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/28c.html. For more poems about teachers, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/teacherspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Gardens
July 27: Twenty-Eight3

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Kathleen Charlotte Angel Passed Away

July 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a name poem using a garden to symbolize a lasting spiritual legacy.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Kathleen Charlotte Angel passed away
A year ago, and all her generations
Tend her private garden. Great-grandchildren
Have planted roses there, and will remember.
Love lasts as song, and does not pass away,
Even in the course of generations,
Even when the roses of the children
New bloom within an arbor none remembers.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Gardens
July 26: Kathleen Charlotte Angel Passed Away

Monday, July 24, 2017

Sing of Gardeners, Who Nurture Beauty

July 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem in praise of gardeners.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sing of gardeners, who nurture beauty,
Invested in the source of civilization!
Xerophytes or hydrophytes, their plants
Take root and flourish by their will, not chance,
Yielding a sweet harvest of sensation.

No artist has more exigent a duty
In capturing the radiance of Creation,
Nor one more apt to make the spirit dance,
Earth turned to human song through cultivation.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/singo8.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Gardens
July 25: Sing of Gardeners, Who Nurture Beauty

Sunday, July 23, 2017

There Is a Garden in My Heart

July 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about a spiritual garden in which one can find peace.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is a garden in my heart
More beautiful than words,
Filled with subtle scents and shades
And the rhapsodies of birds.

I go there to refill my cup,
Or, when I am alone,
To find my favorite rock and trace
The smile upon the stone.

When the wind blows in my heart,
Stirring up the sea,
I turn my back upon the waves
And return to me.

I sit beside a quiet pool
And gaze down at the sky,
And feel a yearning so complete
I cannot help but cry.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Gardens
July 24: There Is a Garden in My Heart

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Only in the Prison of Perfection

July 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is proposing marriage and getting engaged.

Today’s poem is an engagement poem about the importance of mutual need if a marriage is to last.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Only in the prison of perfection,
Needing neither love nor company,
Your body quite dissolved in pure perception,
One oversoul as far as mind can see;
Unattached to meaning or desire,
Redolent of heaven's thin, cold air,
Empty of an all-devouring fire
Nor interested in being more than there;
Granted such a state, what need for marriage?
All there is, is with you all the while.
Gifts of love redound to those who forage
Earnestly, with neither greed nor guile.
May you hunger and find surfeit sweet,
Each separately an angel incomplete,
Needing one another's love to know
The greatest bliss vouchsafed to those below.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Proposing Marriage and Getting Engaged
July 23: Only in the Prison of Perfection