How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

December 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how the Hanukkah lights are sustained by being rekindled every year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How beautiful the Hanukkah lights,

All aglow on winter nights!

Nine candles dancing, dancing down

Until no trace of flame is found.

Knowing they will be again

Kindled to remember when

A miracle such fire sustained

Helps keep alive the inner flame.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/howbe5.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

December 15: How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

Being in Eternity and Time

December 14, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how one can through the imagination know eternity within time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Being in eternity and time,

One knows both, as though a piece of music

Not only was itself, but every piece

Not heard, not even written, as though the moment

Included all that ever was, could ever be,

Even what one never could imagine.

Sing of the gift that brings one to imagine

Eternity within each tick of time,

The daily human miracle that can be

Heard in the intensity of music,

Every ecstasy that fills the moment,

Letting one find glory piece by piece.

In the eternal moment there is peace.

Zero and infinity. Imagine

All creation in a single moment,

Being in the grip of conscious time,

Eternities in thoughts, in words, in music,

That bring one to the finite brink of be,

Here beside the radiance of be.

Each of us can turn within towards peace,

Living in the midst of silent music,

Listening to songs one can imagine.

Even fuel-less flames go out in time.

Nor can forever be but in the moment.

Give thanks for every day, year, hour, moment,

Alive as only one who dies can be.

Be grateful for the unsought gift of time,

Ripening towards wisdom, love, and peace.

In every pulse, one can reimagine

Eternity, as grace, as timeless music.

Live, then, in the ambiance of music,

Alive in both forever and the moment,

Needing, to be joyful, to imagine

Death within the miracle of be,

Knowing that eternal inner peace

Endures beneath the holocaust of time.

Nor does the music vanish with the moment.

Nor can what one imagines well but be

A piece of praise song sung for one’s own time.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/being4.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 13, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began last night, December 12.

Today’s poem is a Chanukah poem about why one might celebrate a miracle one does not believe occurred.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Can one celebrate a miracle,

Having no belief that one occurred?

A row of candles might be beautiful:

Need one recall their reason seems absurd?

Underneath the story lies the meaning

Kindled by the ritual memory,

A tale of faith that one might find redeeming,

However secular one’s faith might 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/canon2.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins tonight, December 12.

Today’s poem is about the inseparability of darkness and light.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Bless the darkness, bless the light.

Open up your fearful heart.

None can sever soul from breath.

None can sever life from death.

If none can tell the two apart,

Each must bless both bloom and blight.

Sing of beauty, sing of blight,

Ecstasy and dying light!

The miracles that oceans part

Have their blueprints in the heart.

Even at the edge of death,

Life looks for eternal breath.

In every heartbeat, every breath,

Zealous to postpone the blight,

Aware of age, aware of death,

But anxious to prolong the light,

Each sings of sunlight in the heart

To bless with joy a well-played part,

Here to sing and then depart.

Eight days the nation held its breath.

Light eternal lit the heart,

Letting all know death and blight

Endure but briefly, while the light

Needs only faith to conquer death.

Granted faith can conquer death,

And God can seas and oceans part.

But life is darkness filled with light,

Radiant in every breath,

Infinity enduring blight,

Ending with a broken heart.

Life requires a ravenous heart

And every moment feeds on death,

Needing darkness, needing blight,

Dear sweet whole that none can part,

Kindling joy in every breath,

Each aging pulse a pulse of light.

Now love’s lantern lights the heart,

Now death curls around each breath.

And none can blight from blessing part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/bless8.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

Have a Happy Hanukah

December 11, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins on December 13.

Today’s poem is a Hanukkah poem about lighting the Hanukkah lights both without and within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Have a happy Hanukkah

And light the dancing lights!

Now bright Heaven’s harbinger

Undoes the long, cold nights.

Kindle on your windowsill,

Kindle in your heart,

A symbol of a miracle,

Here to light the dark.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/havea2.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

Happiness Breaches, Bursting from the Deep

December 10, 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 comings and goings of happiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness breaches, bursting from the deep,

And then sounds, submerged for humdrum days,

Playing with the heart as music plays,

Passionate, peaceful, poised to laugh or weep.

Years of happiness are tidal, turning,

Having silent commerce with the moon,

Overwhelming sand and flowering dune,

Leaving with an outbound rush of yearning.

Implanted in the frozen soil of winter,

Days of celebration blossom still,

A sign of life’s resilience as the will

Yields nothing to the season, dark and bitter,

Singing of happiness through good and ill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ80.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

December 8: Holidays Are Happy Days

December 9: Happiness Is Often Background Music

December 10: Happiness Breaches, Bursting from the Deep

Happiness Is Often Background Music

December 9, 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 holidays as the festive markers of time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness is often background music,

A song one hears but rarely listens to,

Perhaps because the lyrics aren’t new,

Perhaps because one does not often choose it.

Years are gifts to cherish day by day.

However, one remembers year by year --

On birthdays, holidays, days of ritual cheer,

Life’s festive markers placed along one’s way.

In unmarked days is where one’s happiness happens,

Days of work, of longing, of routine,

A quiet happiness, a gentle green,

Yielding, yes, at times to cares and passions,

Still savoring the moment and the dream.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ79.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

December 8: Holidays Are Happy Days

December 9: Happiness Is Often Background Music