Happy Holidays Are Rarely Tranquil

December 1, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week in honor of the beginning of the holiday season is Happy Holidays.

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

A Happy Holidays poem about the difficulties of dealing with people on the holidays:

Happy holidays are rarely tranquil.

A social moment needs society.

People can be pains, hang on to ankles,

Play hurtful games, whoever they might be.

Yet happy holidays come every year.

Happiness does not preclude some stress.

One often finds that those one holds most dear

Lead one often dearly to regress.

In happy holidays one finds a song

Dancing in involuntary heads,

Asking one if one would sing along,

Yielding tears that sheer nostalgia sheds,

Song of love whose yearning can’t be wrong.

© 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/happ88.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Audio and Video Music: Sovereign Quarter. By Kevin MacLeod. Performed by Kevin MacLeod at the Free Music Archive under an Attribution license.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays

11/26: All Our Friends Have Come to Play

11/27: Hail to the Season of Remembrance

11/28: Happiness Is Rarely Melody

11/29: Happy Holidays

11/30: Happiness Could Use Some Recognition

12/1: Happy Holidays Are Rarely Tranquil

Happiness Could Use Some Recognition

November 30, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week in honor of the beginning of the holiday season is Happy Holidays.

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

A Happy Holidays poem about the need to celebrate happiness:

Happiness could use some recognition,

A word or two of pleasure and of praise.

Perhaps it's not a matter of cognition.

Perhaps it needs the help of holidays.

Yet there is ample cause for unshed sorrow,

Hapless housemate one can’t leave behind,

Old comrade that will still be there tomorrow

Lest one lose the past and go forth blind.

In holidays there is a happiness

Deep and wide enough to hold the whole,

A truth that is too subtle to express

Yet satisfies enough to still the soul,

Serving as the gift that pays the toll.

© 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/happ87.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Audio and Video Music: Trust. By Jahzzar. Performed by Jahzzar at the Free Music Archive under an Attribution-ShareAlike license.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays

11/26: All Our Friends Have Come to Play

11/27: Hail to the Season of Remembrance

11/28: Happiness Is Rarely Melody

11/29: Happy Holidays

11/30: Happiness Could Use Some Recognition

Happy Holidays

November 29, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week in honor of the beginning of the holiday season is Happy Holidays.

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

A Happy Holidays poem from an ecumenical point of view:

Happy Holidays! Whichever ones

Apply: Jewish, Christian, secular!

People should be less particular,

Perhaps because the labels aren’t sums.

Year's end's a time of darkness, true, but when

Has outer darkness darkened inner light?

Our separate faiths at this sweet time unite,

Lighting one large room beyond our ken.

In celebration there is more than joy:

Days of feasting bind our friendships fast,

A fat and full embrace of things that last,

Yet holy in what sense one might employ,

Savoring all rites that spirits buoy.

© 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/happyh.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Audio and Video Music: Concerto for 2 Oboes in F Major Op9 no3, 1 Allegro. By Tomaso Albinoni. Performed by the Advent Orchestra at the Free Music Archive under an Attribution- Share Alike license.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays

11/26: All Our Friends Have Come to Play

11/27: Hail to the Season of Remembrance

11/28: Happiness Is Rarely Melody

11/29: Happy Holidays

Happiness Is Rarely Melody

November 28, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week in honor of the beginning of the holiday season is Happy Holidays.

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

A Happy Holidays poem describing happiness as the bass voice in a quartet:

Happiness is rarely melody

As other voices jockey for the lead.

Perhaps it is most comfortable as bass,

Pleased to underlie the others' grace,

Yielding to their histrionic need,

Holding up their fragile harmony.

On holidays, however, it becomes

Less self-effacing, stepping forth to sing,

In moments filled with labor, love, and longing,

Deep descants on the beauty of belonging;

After which, again retiring,

Yet not before the harried heart takes wing,

Softly at the base of life it hums.

© 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/happ33.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Audio and Video Music: Sonata No. 1 in F Minor: Adagio. By Ludwig von Beethoven. Performed by Daniel Veesey at the Free Music Archive under a Public Domain License.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays

11/26: All Our Friends Have Come to Play

11/27: Hail to the Season of Remembrance

11/28: Happiness Is Rarely Melody

Hail to the Season of Remembrance

November 27, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week in honor of the beginning of the holiday season is Happy Holidays.

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

A Happy Holidays poem about the function of holidays in preserving bonds of love:

Hail to the season of remembrance!

A time of times both prized and stored away.

Praised be the arts of social grace and semblance,

Put on like clothes to keep the cold at bay.

Years of atrophy require attention,

Hearing but an intermittent song.

On holidays we tend to love’s retention,

Lest time sever ties we would prolong.

In celebration, then, of life and love,

Destiny and hope and hapless mirth,

All ought let the season in them move,

Yielding to the rituals of rebirth,

Sustained by what we know dear friends are worth.

© 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/hailt2.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Audio and Video Music: Like the Sky. By Damiano Baldoni. Performed by Damiano Baldoni at the Free Music Archive under an Attribution license.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays

11/26: All Our Friends Have Come to Play

11/27: Hail to the Season of Remembrance

All Our Friends Have Come to Play

November 26, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week in honor of the beginning of the holiday season is Happy Holidays.

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

A holiday poem for children:

All our friends have come to play

And celebrate the holiday --

The horses with their rainbow wings,

And parrots with a dog that sings,

Three elephants that love to dance --

Careful not to crush the ants! --

A kangaroo

Who looks like you,

And fifteen foxes wearing pants.

Come play with us! Come play! Come play!

© 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/allour.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Audio and Video Music: Entrance to the Queen of Sheba. By George Frideric Handel. Performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra at the Free Music Archive under an Attribution-Share Alike license.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays

11/26: All Our Friends Have Come to Play

Trees Are Grateful, as Are Squash and Squirrels

November 25, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Thanksgiving, which was celebrated on November 22^nd.

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

A Thanksgiving poem about gratitude in all living things:

Trees are grateful, as are squash and squirrels,

Hedgehogs, hedges, hummingbirds, and mites,

All that live in houses, reefs, or burrows,

Nests, shells, caves, cracks, walls, streams, toxic sites;

Knowing each its own sweet strain of joy,

Sensing pleasure, hunger, rapture, pain,

Grief and gladness, hopes that spirits buoy,

In hawks and humans, seaweed, grass, and grain;

Vividly in love with life and being,

In which the gift ordains the mystery;

Nor ought one rank the many ways of seeing,

Given the shared wonder of to 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/.html. For more Thanksgiving poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Thanksgiving

11/19: Tell Me, Please, Whom I Ought to Thank

11/20: The Point Is What You Have, Not What You Don’t

11/21: There Is No Joy That Does Not Sing of Longing

11/22: Time Is a Gift, like Food or Love or Death

11/23: I Look Across

11/24: The Thing I Am Most Thankful for Is Love

11/25: Trees Are Grateful, as Are Squash and Squirrels