Holding Hands, We've Walked Through Many Years

November 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a 25^th anniversary poem about commitment, choice, fate, and fortune.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holding hands, we’ve walked through many years,

A gift of daily choice called happiness.

Perhaps such love’s not easy to express.

Perhaps the only fit remarks are tears.

Yet under light, love’s beauty stabs and sears,

Too real to be reduced to more or less,

Wistful paradise, pure tenderness,

Embrace beyond fulfillment, longing, fears.

No commitment could be more complete,

There being little in one’s life untouched.

Years pass; the roots and branches intertwine;

Fortune seems like fate; two souls seem one.

In fact, one’s choice is one one must repeat.

Free will demands one’s separateness, as such.

To love is to create a place in time –

Here, now, a labor that is never done.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Wedding Anniversaries

November 27: Freedom Is the Power to Commit

November 28: Holding Hands, We’ve Walked Through Many Years

Freedom Is the Power to Commit

November 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a 49^th anniversary poem about love and choice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Freedom is the power to commit

Oneself to limiting one’s freedom. Real choice

Rules out choices. One finds the proper fit,

Then through years of loving finds one’s voice.

Yet some are loath to choose because they fear

Not being free to choose, at every moment

In flight from choice because they cannot bear

Not living only, solely, in the present.

Each lover lives within a larger space,

Yielding to the future and the past,

Engaged in well-timed acts of timeless grace

As each, each day renews a love that lasts.

Rejoice, then, in that choice made long ago,

Still choosing love, for love is what you know.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/freed4.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Wedding Anniversaries

November 27: Freedom Is the Power to Commit

Thank You for the Harvest and the Healing

November 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Thanksgiving, which was celebrated on November 23.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about the need to say thank you.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank you for the harvest and the healing,

Health, wealth, hunger, all the goods of Earth,

All that we inherited at birth,

Need, joy, love, pain, grief, desire, feeling.

Know that we are grateful for our being,

Singing silent praises in our hearts,

Giving in the temples of our arts

Invocations to the act of seeing.

Vain though it may be to think you're hearing,

In us there is an ancient urge to speak,

Not for any answers that we seek,

Glad just to converse -- like love, like breathing.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/than43.html. For more Thanksgiving poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Thanksgiving

November 20: The Gift of Being Cannot Be a Given

November 21: Tides Return the Favors They Have Taken

November 22: To Thank You Is a Gift One Gives Oneself

November 23: Trees About to Bloom, in Bloom, Full-Leaved

November 24: Thank You for the Gift of Being Thankful

November 25: There Is No Hope Without the Help of Grief

November 26: Thank You for the Harvest and the Healing

There Is No Hope Without the Help of Grief

November 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Thanksgiving, which was celebrated on November 23.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about how hope is kindled by desperation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no hope without the help of grief.

Hope is kindled from a bed of ashes,

A history of holocausts and lashes,

Needing anguish to persuade belief;

Kindled only by a desperation

Strong enough to dry a pelting rain,

Grace that is the apogee of pain,

Intending more than personal salvation.

Vested in each sorrow is a dream,

Innocence surrounded by despair;

Nor are we grateful just for what is there,

Giving thanks for what we would redeem.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/ther26.html. For more Thanksgiving poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Thanksgiving

November 20: The Gift of Being Cannot Be a Given

November 21: Tides Return the Favors They Have Taken

November 22: To Thank You Is a Gift One Gives Oneself

November 23: Trees About to Bloom, in Bloom, Full-Leaved

November 24: Thank You for the Gift of Being Thankful

November 25: There Is No Hope Without the Help of Grief

Thank You for the Gift of Being Thankful

November 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Thanksgiving, which was celebrated yesterday, November 23.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem thanking God for the gift of gratitude.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank You for the gift of being thankful.

Here is one gift we can both enjoy!

A gift that can at will my spirits buoy,

Needing only will to yield a heartful.

Knowledge won't engender gratitude;

Some may know a lot and yet feel little.

Grace comes hot and hearty off the griddle;

In some, though, there's no hunger for such food.

Voices sing of paradise at will.

I hear them when I start to sing alone.

Nor do I cease to hear them when they're gone,

Glad to be alive and thankful still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/than46.html. For more Thanksgiving poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Thanksgiving

November 20: The Gift of Being Cannot Be a Given

November 21: Tides Return the Favors They Have Taken

November 22: To Thank You Is a Gift One Gives Oneself

November 23: Trees About to Bloom, in Bloom, Full-Leaved.

November 24: Thank You for the Gift of Being Thankful

Trees About to Bloom, in Bloom, Full-Leaved

November 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Thanksgiving, which is celebrated today, November 23.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem with a list of things to be thankful for.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Trees about to bloom, in bloom, full-leaved;

Harrowing escapes, fresh plums and pears;

A cold, gray afternoon, a son long grieved;

Nearing home, the last long flight of stairs;

Kindnesses returned, a glimpse of breast;

Scent of lilac, hunger, tell-tale pain;

Gifts one cannot use, a playful pest;

Illnesses one would not wish again;

Victories, defeats, the urge to dance;

Imitation whipped cream, the real thing;

New thoughts, a lingering death, a brief romance;

Grace to love whatever life may bring.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Thanksgiving

November 20: The Gift of Being Cannot Be a Given

November 21: Tides Return the Favors They Have Taken

November 22: To Thank You Is a Gift One Gives Oneself

November 23: Trees About to Bloom, in Bloom, Full-Leaved

To Thank You Is a Gift One Gives Oneself

November 22, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Thanksgiving, which is celebrated on November 23.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about how gratitude is a gift one gives oneself.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To thank You is a gift one gives oneself,

Having felt the fullness of one's being.

As You might--or not--be listening,

None knows more than his own gratitude.

Knowledge is beside the point, the gulf

So wide between us there's no hope of seeing.

Gifts require givers, so one sings

In thanks that in oneself some grace might move.

Vast quantities of thanks lie on the shelf

In wait for some fresh faith that might be freeing.

Nor ought one wait for one's own Angelus bell,

Giving one an object for one's love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Thanksgiving

November 20: The Gift of Being Cannot Be a Given

November 21: Tides Return the Favors They Have Taken

November 22: To Thank You Is a Gift One Gives Oneself