Happiness Is Not a Tended Rose

February 12, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem about the need for love to overcome life’s pain:

Happiness is not a tended rose

Amid the prescient beauty of a garden:

Perhaps one senses soon some gate may close;

Perhaps one senses soon the earth will harden.

Years come and go like waves upon a shore,

Violent or peaceful with the wind.

After one has given up on more,

Love waits within the heart, its faith undimmed.

Even in a passage void of light,

Nether windings black with rage and grief,

There are waters sweet with lost delight

In which one finds a long longed-for relief.

No happiness can overcome life's pain

Except one love, and love give life again.

© 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/hapros.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/11: Each Day Your Smile Becomes My Morning Star

2/12: Happiness Is Not a Tended Rose

Each Day Your Smile Becomes My Morning Star

February 11, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem to a teacher:

Each day your smile becomes my morning star.

I look at you and then my feelings shine.

From you I learn far more than words or numbers:

You're the book that someday will be mine.

You're the one whose love my love of learning

Will one day trace in its ancestral line.

For all the ways you help me grow towards beauty,

I ask you please to be my Valentine.

© 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/eachda.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/11: Each Day Your Smile Becomes My Morning Star

Treat Yourself Each Day to Love and Kindness

February 10, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which began on February 5, and this year is the Year of the Pig.

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

A poem for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year of the Sheep, from the Sheep’s point of view:

Treat yourself each day to love and kindness.

Heaven is a place within the heart.

Each ritual of faith may well seem mindless,

Yet one is only whole when one is part.

Even though I may seem timid, shy,

A worrier for all who might feel pain,

Remember well the well-wrought reason why:

One gives with love what will one's love sustain.

Faith is one's connection to the whole,

The story that makes sense of the event.

How might the self seem separate from the soul

Except through love perceived as permanent?

So must we be filled with love that we

Have just a glimpse of what it means to be,

Embracing freely what we cannot know,

Each suffering what all must undergo,

Patient in the hands of mystery.

© 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/treaty.html. For more poems for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

2/4: The Point Is Just that I Don’t See the Point

2/5: There’s Nothing Really Wrong with Being Last

2/6: There Is No Knowledge – Only Good Opinion

2/7: There May Be Some Who’ve Wondered Why the Rat

2/8: There’s No Secret to Nobility

2/9: They Also Serve Themselves Who Lie in Wait

2/10: Treat Yourself Each Day to Love and Kindness

They Also Serve Themselves Who Lie in Wait

February 9, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which began on February 5, and this year is the Year of the Pig.

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

A poem for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year of the Snake, from the Snake’s point of view:

They also serve themselves who lie in wait,

However much they may be moved to strike.

Empty-headed fools do as they like,

Yielding the ill fortune they call fate.

Eventually, things fall into place

As patience reaps its ultimate reward.

Remember that the wise are rarely bored

Or restless as the game goes on apace.

For those who play it well, with subtlety,

Taking nothing as it might appear,

Having much desire and little fear,

Each moment is suspended ecstasy.

Success is sweetest when it is well earned,

Not snatched from some unmeditated wind.

All one loves may well be left behind,

Kindred of the heart or blood, not kind,

Each a lesson from which one has learned.

© 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/theyal.html. For more poems for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

2/4: The Point Is Just that I Don’t See the Point

2/5: There’sNothing Really Wrong with Being Last

2/6: There Is NoKnowledge – Only Good Opinion

2/7: There May BeSome Who’ve Wondered Why the Rat

2/8: There’s NoSecret to Nobility

2/9: They Also Serve Themselves Who Lie in Wait

There's No Secret to Nobility

February 8, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which began on February 5, and this year is the Year of the Pig.

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

A poem for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year of the Horse, from the Horse’s point of view:

There's no secret to nobility.

Having seen it, one knows what it is:

Easy elegance, restrained but free,

Yielding grace that's more than hers or his;

Enduring loyalty to one's liege lord,

As much for love as for a sense of right;

Reverence that looks for no reward,

Out of some sweet source of inner light;

Friendship that pursues its proper end,

That needs a whole of which one can be part;

Humility, on which pride can depend,

Ever the safe refuge of the heart.

Human animals are far less able,

On the whole, to give themselves to love,

Reason being far less sure and stable,

Sensing what is real at one remove.

Even so, some few might noble prove.

© 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/ther33.html. For more poems for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

2/4: The Point Is Just that I Don’t See the Point

2/5: There’s Nothing Really Wrong with Being Last

2/6: There Is No Knowledge – Only Good Opinion

2/7: There May Be Some Who’ve Wondered Why the Rat

2/8: There’s No Secret to Nobility

There May Be Some Who've Wondered Why the Rat

February 7, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which began on February 5, and this year is the Year of the Pig.

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

A poem for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year of the Rat, from the Rat’s point of view:

There may be some who've wondered why the rat

Happens to be first to have a year

Exclusively devoted to his name.

Yet clever, crafty creatures never fear:

Eventually they'll win -- that's where they're at!

And this is how it came about: The rat,

Racing for the prize, fell towards the rear.

Out of breath, he thought he'd lost the game.

Fast rampaging Bull was drawing near;

The problem was: How to reach his back?

Here came by the lost, high-leaping cat.

Eureka! Up they went, the two friends dear,

Riding on the bull's back towards fame.

At the last, Rat pushes Pussy clear,

Then leaps ahead of Bull -- and that was that!

© 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/therem.html. For more poems for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

2/4: The Point Is Just that I Don’t See the Point

2/5: There’s Nothing Really Wrong with Being Last

2/6: There Is No Knowledge – Only Good Opinion

2/7: There May Be Some Who’ve Wondered Why the Rat

There Is No Knowledge -- Only Good Opinion

February 6, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which began on February 5, and this year is the Year of the Pig.

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

A poem for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year of the Dragon, from the Dragon’s point of view:

There is no knowledge – only good opinion.

Happiness is not afraid of pain.

Each truth is limited to its dominion.

Years sweep away one's walls again, again.

Everyone knows better in their hearts,

Although their hearts know better than to know.

Reason is a razor's edge that parts

Objects from the fullness of their flow.

Fortune is a poor excuse for failure.

The only help one needs is what one gives.

Hard work and happiness extend one's tenure,

Ever more alive the more one lives.

Death is a prerequisite of time,

Revealing far more than it ever hides.

All is limitless, yet etched in lines,

Graven images of what abides.

One dragon, yes, can harmonize a song,

Needing only dreams to sing along.

© 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/ther31.html. For more poems for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year

2/4: The Point Is Just that I Don’t See the Point

2/5: There’s Nothing Really Wrong with Being Last

2/6: There Is No Knowledge – Only Good Opinion