Pastors Are Supposed to Be the Shepherds

September 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is professions in honor of Labor Day, which was celebrated on September 4.

Today’s poem is about the profession of pastor.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Pastors are supposed to be the shepherds

A willing flock has bid to guide their souls.

So must you be yourself a lamb of courage,

The one most lost amid the moral wreckage

Of Adam's sin, whose grief must be the fold's.

Remember we are all but broken potsherds,

Sustained alone by faith in some great whole.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Professions

September 4: Facts Are Never Simply What Is True

September 5: Therapists Find Fortune in Misfortune

September 6: Nurses Must Be Angels by Profession

September 7: Pastors Are Supposed to Be the Shepherds

Nurses Must Be Angels by Profession

September 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is professions in honor of Labor Day, which was celebrated on September 4.

Today’s poem is about the profession of nursing.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Nurses must be angels by profession,

Under the direction of their gods.

Restoring peace to those immersed in pain,

Sustaining life in those life can't sustain,

Each nurse each day must elevate the odds,

Skilled in love's most practical expression.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Professions

September 4: Facts Are Never Simply What Is True

September 5: Therapists Find Fortune in Misfortune

September 6: Nurses Must Be Angels by Profession

Therapists Find Fortune in Misfortune

September 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is professions in honor of Labor Day, which was celebrated on September 4.

Today’s poem is a number poem about the profession of therapist.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Therapists find fortune in misfortune,

Here to help us navigate our pain.

If our existence must precede our essence,

Requiring an extended adolescence,

There is need for those who keep us sane.

Yet some fear nothing more than resurrection.

Sing, then, of therapists, who would find ways,

Even in these times, to ease distress,

Vested in the cause of happiness,

Embracing life through long and brutal days,

Not least because their love demands no less.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Professions

September 4: Facts Are Never Simply What Is True

September 5: Therapists Find Fortune in Misfortune

Facts Are Never Simply What Is True

September 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is professions in honor of Labor Day, which is celebrated today, September 4.

Today’s poem is a philosophical number poem about the need for statisticians.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Facts are never simply what is true.

One looks at them as one would look at notes

Resounding in the context of a key

That makes sense of it all. No note evokes

Yearning but from an aural point of view.

Each fact, as well, requires an inner key

If one would make some sense of it. It, too,

Gives way to meaning as it numbly votes,

Having shrunken to a number, to construe

The truth of a surmise statistically.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Professions

September 4: Facts Are Never Simply What Is True

Volunteers Are Willing to Take Risks

September 3, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is sacrifice, in honor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which falls on September 2 and commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son.

Today’s poem is about the motivations, rewards, and need for volunteers.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Volunteers are willing to take risks,

Out-of-pocket for some leisure time,

Letting love and joy dictate the tasks

Undertaken for some modest dream.

No one volunteers but for a vision

That never fits but may oblige a truth.

Each finds some ideal with which to fashion

Ends that are of hard-earned wisdom wrought.

Relentless need and hunger rule the world.

Still, volunteers do all the good they can.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Sacrifice

August 28: Thirty-One5

August 29: Forty-Three4

August 30: Thirty-Eight8

August 31: Allen

September 1: Forty-Three5

September 2: Giving Gives Far More than We Intend

September 3: Volunteers Are Willing to Take Risks

Giving Gives Far More than We Intend

September 2, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is sacrifice, in honor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which falls on September 2 and commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son.

Today’s poem is about the grace of giving.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Giving gives far more than we intend.

In everything we do is what we are,

Vastly different than we comprehend,

Infinite as any quark or star.

No one ever loves for some clear end,

Gripped by grace that breaks beyond the bar.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Sacrifice

August 28: Thirty-One5

August 29: Forty-Three4

August 30: Thirty-Eight8

August 31: Allen

September 1: Forty-Three5

September 2: Giving Gives Far More than We Intend

Forty-Three5

September 1, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is sacrifice, in honor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which falls on September 2 and commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son.

Today’s poem is a number poem about how parental sacrifice changes one.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-three is mainly now a father,

Offering himself to others' needs.

Remember that such love can give no quarter,

Taking one where obligation leads,

Yielding up a joy that breaks and bleeds.

To love is to become oneself another,

Heeding new hopes as the old recede,

Repurposing one’s self to serve some other,

Embracing what one’s former self concedes,

Ever mounted on quixotic steeds.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Sacrifice

August 28: Thirty-One5

August 29: Forty-Three4

August 30: Thirty-Eight8

August 31: Allen

September 1: Forty-Three5