I Cannot Help but Be What I Would Not

August 8, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is miscarriage, stillbirth, and death in early childhood.

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

An angry poem from a mother who miscarried to a father who could not be there:

I cannot help but be what I would not:

A river raging reckless through our love;

But anger is the closest thing I've got

To what far more aggrieved must in me move.

I know quite well that I'm not being fair:

You could not help but be untimely gone.

But unlike you, I could not be but there

To feel our child go dead within my womb.

How you are like the wind, and I the earth

That bears the seed you scatter on your way!

Mine alone the brutal joys of birth;

Yours alone the choice to go or stay.

Despite our love, despite your sympathy,

I know that I in this alone must be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/icann2.html. For more poems about miscarriage and stillbirth, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/miscarriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Death in Early Childhood

8/6: Aryanna

8/7: To a Stillborn Sister

8/8: I Cannot Help but Be What I Would Not

To a Stillborn Sister

August 7, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is miscarriage, stillbirth, and death in early childhood.

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

A love poem to a stillborn sister:

How do you love a person

Who never got to be,

Or try again to see a face

You never got to see?

How do you mourn the death of one

Who never got to live,

When there's nothing to feel good about

And nothing to forgive?

I love you, little sister.

You're a person of the wind,

Free to be the memory

Of all that might have been.

I love you, little sister,

My companion of the night,

Wandering through my lonely hours,

Beautiful and bright.

What does it mean to die before

You ever can be born,

To live the lovely night of life

And never see the dawn?

Ah! My little sister,

You lived like anyone!

Life's a burst of joy and pain,

And then, like yours, it's done.

I love you, little sister,

Just as if you'd lived for years.

No more, no less, I think of you,

The angel of my tears.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/stillb.html. For more poems about miscarriage and stillbirth, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/miscarriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Death in Early Childhood

8/6: Aryanna

8/7: To a Stillborn Sister

Aryanna

August 6, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is miscarriage, stillbirth, and death in early childhood.

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

A name poem for a stillborn child:

Aryanna died when she was born,

Reminding us how briefly we are here.

Years, like minutes, cannot last for long;

A note is no less precious than a song,

Nor for her early death was she less dear.

Now what we can do for her is mourn,

As she is salient only to our tears.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/aryann.html. For more poems about miscarriage and stillbirth, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/miscarriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Death in Early Childhood

8/6: Aryanna

Happiness Has Been Your Gift to Me

August 5, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

An anniversary poem about the love that lasts beneath the years:

Happiness has been your gift to me

All these years of melody and pain,

Pleasure, hardship, wanton rhapsody,

Pure delight and hard, wind-driven rain.

Years do not add up to love and glory:

All things rest on non-things far more true.

No note is so sustained throughout our story;

Nothing but your love, and mine for you.

In our lives must always be confusion:

Very little lost in Time is clear.

Even so, the whirlwind's an illusion

Regarding the few things we hold most dear.

So you have chosen me, and in that choice

Alone I find my refuge and my voice.

Reality is made by our own will:

You made my world and hold me in it still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happi.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

7/30: Happy Sixth Anniversary4

7/31: Happy Fourteenth Anniversary

8/1: Happy Ninth Anniversary2

8/2: Heaven Isn’t Easy

8/3: Happy Second Anniversary

8/4: Time, in Time, Eventually Is Timeless

8/5: Happiness Has Been Your Gift to Me

Time, in Time, Eventually Is Timeless

August 4, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A thirty-eighth anniversary poem about love and time:

Time, in time, eventually is timeless,

Having flattened out into a sea.

In moments of sufficient mass is oneness,

Reduced to what might seem eternity.

There is in love a similar dynamic

Yielding to the outpourings of years,

Endless end, redemption oceanic,

Infinite home for memories and tears.

Give, then, due thanks for love that lasts forever,

However long that is, a depthless deep

That rests beneath the restless waves of ever,

Happily the one thing you may keep.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/timein.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

7/30: Happy Sixth Anniversary4

7/31: Happy Fourteenth Anniversary

8/1: Happy Ninth Anniversary2

8/2: Heaven Isn’t Easy

8/3: Happy Second Anniversary

8/4: Time, in Time, Eventually Is Timeless

Happy Second Anniversary

August 3, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A second anniversary poem about how a couple changes slowly together:

Happy second anniversary!

As time wears on, the newness wears away;

Passion turns to pleasurable play;

Preference becomes necessity.

Years are markers towards a transformation

Slow and unobtrusive as a tide

Elevating vessels side by side,

Changing both, but ever in relation.

On this, your second, then, may you rejoice,

Nestled in the chamber of your choice,

Destined by your love for celebration.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happys.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

7/30: Happy Sixth Anniversary4

7/31: Happy Fourteenth Anniversary

8/1: Happy Ninth Anniversary2

8/2: Heaven Isn’t Easy

8/3: Happy Second Anniversary

Heaven Isn't Easy

August 2, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

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

A fifth anniversary poem about the hard work involved in love’s labor:

Heaven isn’t easy. God knows it takes

A lot of work to build a house of love.

Praised be those devoted to love’s labor,

Passing love on to their generations,

Yielding pleasure in return for joy.

For love’s labor’s never lost, but makes

It easier for happiness to prove

Fit for those who would return the favor,

Trading fantasy for brick till the relation

Has roof and walls no wild wind would destroy.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/heave8.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

7/30: Happy Sixth Anniversary4

7/31: Happy Fourteenth Anniversary

8/1: Happy Ninth Anniversary2

8/2: Heaven Isn’t Easy