Here's a Toast to Caring and Compassion

December 1, 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 an 8^th anniversary poem about giving and happiness in love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Here’s a toast to caring and compassion,

And love, which is the music of that song.

Praised be those whose love of life is strong,

Pleased to give with neither writ nor ration.

Years are rarely merciful to passion,

Even as love would that joy prolong,

Innocent of all that might be wrong,

Giving generously, as is its fashion.

Happiness remains an act of will,

The daily choice to love with grace and skill,

Having found the place where one belongs.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/heres4.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

November 29: How Beautiful Life Is, and How Rewarding

November 30: Each Year a Marriage Gets a Little Better

December 1: Here’s a Toast to Caring and Compassion

Each Year a Marriage Gets a Little Better

November 30, 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 an 11^th anniversary poem about the continued need for romance in marriage.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Each year a marriage gets a little better,

Like a house slowly settling in.

Edges age, smooth out, then lean together;

Voices whisper faintly in the wind.

Even so, fresh flowers can do wonders,

Needed at the windows, at the door.

Years of wear could use a little color,

Embellishing what else needs little more.

All marriages can profit from romance,

Required to turn duty into dance,

Still beautiful, with much more love in store.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/eachy3.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

November 29: How Beautiful Life Is, and How Rewarding

November 30: Each Year a Marriage Gets a Little Better

How Beautiful Life Is, and How Rewarding

November 29, 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 10^th anniversary poem about love as background music.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How beautiful life is, and how rewarding!

All one needs to do is be in love.

People fall in love with little warning;

Praised be those whose loves resilient prove!

Yet love can sometimes be like background music,

The unheard song that gives the moment grace,

Enduring melody for those who choose it,

Needing, wanting love’s sustained embrace.

Time and change need not desire chill:

Happiness remains the child of will.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/howbe4.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

November 29: How Beautiful Life Is, and How Rewarding

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