Holidays Have Changed over the Eons

December 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about the differences between ancient and modern holiday celebrations.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holidays have changed over the eons

As we evolved from hunters into peons,

Pausing by the graves of mysteries

Preserved for family feasts and shopping sprees,

Yearning for what life was meant to be,

Having lived so long unnaturally.

Once upon a time a holiday

Looked a lot more like a holy day,

In which through ritual joy and chanted prayer,

Dancing, dancing, passionately there,

A person might the restless self erase,

Yielding to a ravenous embrace,

Singing, dancing with unearthly grace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holi10.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

December 6: Somewhere There’s a Magic Door

December 7: Holidays Have Changed over the Eons

Somewhere There's a Magic Door

December 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a holiday poem for a child about finding gifts.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Somewhere there’s a magic door

That opens to your touch.

Within you’ll find the special gifts

That come with who you are.

Of course there might be many more,

But these are quite enough

To bring you all that you might wish

Upon your favorite star.

Perhaps you’ll find the gifts of grace,

Intelligence, or art,

A way with words or numbers, or

A knack for fantasy.

All you find you will embrace

And hold within your heart,

The gifts that are intended for

The gift that you will be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/somew7.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

December 6: Somewhere There’s a Magic Door

How About Those Holidays

December 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays about the continued need for holidays even as one grows older.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How about those holidays!

A festive time of year,

Perhaps because the shortened days

Presuppose an inward gaze,

Yet stir a need for cheer.

How about those holidays?

One knows that they are near,

Listening as the music plays

In stores and squares the songs of praise,

Delightful to the ear.

Although the childhood dream decays,

Yearning that no reason sways

Still holds the season dear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 5: How About Those Holidays

Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

December 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is holidays, in honor of the holiday season.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about appreciating the beauty that lies beneath the sentimentality.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hints of happiness are all around you,

Alive within the sentiment for sale.

Perhaps because the holidays surround you,

Placed ubiquitously, their passions pale.

Yet truth is often smothered in cliché,

However lean and healthy simply broiled.

One can love the rituals of the day,

Lingering over what cannot be spoiled.

In Hanukkah, in Christmas, and in New Year's,

Delight is ancient, having long survived,

Antidote for what had been true fears,

Yearnings for a sun each year revived,

Shining wanly on a land that died.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/hints2.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Holidays

December 4: Hints of Happiness Are All Around You

Forty-Seven Years, and Still Counting

December 3, 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 47^th anniversary poem about married love as a lifelong dance.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-seven years, and still counting!

Over so much time, so much change!

Remember when we were our children's ages,

There in the thick of working out our lives?

Years are leaves piling up around us.

Sing, then, of the blessings that surround us,

Each wonder that the wondering heart revives!

Vast one's life! We travel it in stages,

Even as love makes the land less strange,

Needing love to make life more inviting.

You and I together have been dancing,

Embraced through years we would not rearrange,

Although, of course, we might excise some pages,

Returning, turning to the dance, where lies

Such grace as still has power to astound us.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/47year.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

December 2: Happy Ninth Anniversary

December 3: Forty-Seven Years and Still Counting

Happy Ninth Anniversary

December 2, 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 9^th anniversary poem about love and time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy ninth anniversary!

As the years go by,

Passions come and go like tides,

Pleasures live and die.

Yet love is more dependable,

Nestled in the heart,

In which your bit of grace

Now has a name and face,

The choice you made nine years ago,

Honed by will and art.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ78.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

December 2: Happy Ninth Anniversary

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