Retirement Is Not Simply What It Means

January 12, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since we’re beginning a new year, the theme for this week is new beginnings.

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

A poem about various meanings of the word “retirement”:

Retirement is not simply what it means,

Even as it literally means, "withdrawal."

To most, its less than literal sense is plural:

Infinite time to reify some dreams;

Rich, full days of doing as we please;

Enduring pleasures, passions satiated;

Mind and body fully liberated;

Endless hours to sift through memories.

Now, on your retirement, we hope

That of that word you make a lovely trope.

© 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/retire.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Beginnings

1/7: Revel in Your Golden Years

1/8: A Marriage Celebrates a New Beginning

1/9: Clearly, There Could Be No Better News

1/10: Behold the Mother with Her Newborn Child

1/11: Find Yourself a Purpose and a Goal

1/12: Retirement Is Not Simply What It Means

Find Yourself a Purpose and a Goal

January 11, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since we’re beginning a new year, the theme for this week is new beginnings.

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

A number poem about finding a new purpose for one’s life:

Find yourself a purpose and a goal

Into which you pour your energy,

For there is satisfaction in a role

That makes of life a gift that few may see,

Yet helps sustain the heart’s ecology.

Nor ought your purpose ever be control.

In giving, one relinquishes one’s keys.

No breath can be the wind that moves the whole,

Even as your best may stir the breeze.

© 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/findy3.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Beginnings

1/7: Revel in Your Golden Years

1/8: A Marriage Celebrates a New Beginning

1/9: Clearly, There Could Be No Better News

1/10: Behold the Mother with Her Newborn Child

1/11: Find Yourself a Purpose and a Goal

Behold the Mother with her Newborn Child

January 10, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since we’re beginning a new year, the theme for this week is new beginnings.

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

A poem celebrating the birth of a child:

Behold the mother with her newborn child!

An icon of a hope that never dies.

Death may label all we cherish lies,

Yet this love lies too deep to be defiled.

We clear an inner field where fate has smiled,

Letting play the pleasures of surmise,

Holding back all contrary replies,

As though our thoughts might turn the winters mild.

Despite the well-known travesties of time,

Each time a child is born we dream anew,

For only thus our losses are regained.

Though we must share the destiny of slime,

No passion in our palette is more true

Than that which cradles innocence unstained.

© 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/behold.html. For more poems about pregnancy and childbirth, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/birthpregnancypoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Beginnings

1/7: Revel in Your Golden Years

1/8: A Marriage Celebrates a New Beginning

1/9: Clearly, There Could Be No Better News

1/10: Behold the Mother with Her Newborn Child

Clearly, There Could Be No Better News

January 9, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since we’re beginning a new year, the theme for this week is new beginnings.

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

A congratulations poem to a couple who has just announced their pregnancy:

Clearly, there could be no better news.

Of life and love, now there will be more.

Nor can we guess what grace we have in store,

Granted but imaginary views.

Rejoice in the creation of a soul,

A universe again emerged from darkness,

There being nothing, then a veiled vastness,

Unknowable, infinite, and whole.

Let there be again that bolt of light,

Again the wonder and the mystery,

The being that no cause could cause to be,

Incandescent day from utter night!

O children of desire, what have you done?

New-made a universe, another one,

Shard of One too luminous to see.

© 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/clear2.html. For more poems about pregnancy and childbirth, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/birthpregnancypoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Beginnings

1/7: Revel in Your Golden Years

1/8: A Marriage Celebrates a New Beginning

1/9: Clearly, There Could Be No Better News

A Marriage Celebrates a New Beginning

January 8, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since we’re beginning a new year, the theme for this week is new beginnings.

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

A poem for a bridal shower:

A marriage celebrates a new beginning:

A couple starting out as man and wife.

A shower celebrates a happy ending:

The last days of a woman's single life.

The wide world now has narrowed to a garden

In which I will my pleasures plant and reap.

The outlines of my character will harden

According to the promises I keep.

My joy will soon become a melody

In counterpoint to those for whom I care,

Seeking a profounder harmony

Than any I alone could know or bear.

So shall I find a greater grace within.

One life is over: Let the new begin!

© 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/amarri.html. For more poems about weddings, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Beginnings

1/7: Revel in Your Golden Years

1/8: A Marriage Celebrates a New Beginning

Revel in Your Golden Years

January 7, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since we’re beginning a new year, the theme for this week is new beginnings.

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

A poem to someone who has just retired:

Revel in your golden years!

Enjoy them to the hilt!

Time has crossed an open sea

Impelled by restless winds.

Remember well the joys and tears,

Each passion run full tilt,

More pain and pleasure than might be

Endured, if not combined.

Now savor in tranquility

The things you leave behind.

© 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/revel3.html. For more poems about retirement, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/retirementpoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Beginnings

1/7: Revel in Your Golden Years

Hope Is Not a Harbinger of Peace

January 6, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is New Year’s Day.

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

A Happy New Year poem about necessary survival of hope and love in a world ruled by hatred and fear:

Hope is not a harbinger of peace

As countless holocausts have made quite clear.

Perhaps the unsolved problem is that fear

Prevents the heart from seeking its release.

Years pass; we come no closer to the good,

Nor do we better understand why we

Each year have hope to live in harmony

While watering our fields with tears and blood.

Yet hope remains, and love, that hope revives.

Each knows well that hatred is insane,

And hates and fears and loves and hates again,

Resolving ever to keep hope alive.

© 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/hopei2.html. For more New Year poems go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

12/31: Here We Are Again, Another Year

1/1: Happiness Is Wholly in One’s Power

1/2: Happy New Year! To Those Who Will Have None

1/3: Happy New Year, Darling

1/4: Harbingers of Happiness, Awake

1/5: Here We Have Another New Beginning

1/6: Hope Is Not a Harbinger of Peace