Every Garden Needs Diversity

April 15, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Easter and Passover. The first night of Passover is April 19^th, and Easter is celebrated on April 21^st.

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

A poem for both Easter and Passover about the need for diversity:

Every garden needs diversity,

As grace and function both require it.

So ought gardeners desire it

To make a rich and robust harmony.

Every faith needs faiths that it might be

Resistant to the skeptics who surround it,

Pleased to have believers all around it –

Although segmented, a community.

So is life impoverished by a sameness

Self-imposed to ward off painful change,

Often through a fear that faith be lost.

Very little that one does is blameless.

Each embrace is not without its cost,

Redeemed by love, to which no soul is strange.

© 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/everyg.html. For more Easter poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html . For more Passover poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Easter and Passover

4/15: Every Garden Needs Diversity

As Though I Were Just Flowing, Flowing

April 14, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem from the point of view of someone with Alzheimer’s:

As though I were just flowing, flowing,

Leaving not a trace behind,

Zest for life not one whit less,

However blank the roving mind;

Emptiness the space for being

In the moving moment still,

Meaning nothing more than meaning,

Each ellipse elliptical;

Reminiscences like flowers

'Ere the garden was convened,

So sweet the disconnected hours . . .

© 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/asthou.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

4/9: Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

4/10: When Life Becomes a Sea of Pain

4/11: Grace Comes with a Patina of Pain

4/12: Forty-Nine Is on the Edge of Fifty

4/13: Fractures Rarely Heal Right on Their Own

4/14: As Though I Were Just Flowing, Flowing

Fractures Rarely Heal Right on Their Own

April 13, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about the healing both of fractured bones and fractured feelings:

Fractures rarely heal right on their own.

One must set them with great care and skill.

Remember that the healing power of bone

Takes over once the site is left alone,

Yielding to some autonomic will.

Feelings fracture on a bed of stone.

One sets them and they heal – just like bone,

Uniting heart to heart as fractures fill,

Restored to happiness by that same will.

© 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/fractu.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

4/9: Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

4/10: When Life Becomes a Sea of Pain

4/11: Grace Comes with a Patina of Pain

4/12: Forty-Nine Is on the Edge of Fifty

4/13: Fractures Rarely Heal Right on Their Own

Forty-Nine Is on the Edge of Fifty

April 12, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about handling the aging process:

Forty-nine is on the edge of fifty,

Offering a glimpse of flinty age.

Reason says, of course, he's in his forties,

Too youthful – and too young – to turn the page.

Yet life must amble on from stage to stage.

Now his spirit seems quite hale and hearty --

Infinite, in fact, though it engage

No less in time than his well-tended body,

Each requiring care, sustained and sage.

© 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/49d.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

4/9: Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

4/10: When Life Becomes a Sea of Pain

4/11: Grace Comes with a Patina of Pain

4/12: Forty-Nine Is on the Edge of Fifty

Grace Comes with a Patina of Pain

April 11, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A get-well-soon poem about the inevitability of pain:

Grace comes with a patina of pain.

Each creature must endure what it desires.

There are days one would not wish again,

When all one is, is wish till pain expires.

Expire it does in time, and will for you,

Lest it seem as though time will not run,

Lounging by the bed though dawn is due,

Sensing savagely you want it gone.

Oh, yes, we know that this is life, and we

Owe life both pain and joy. The will to be

Needs sometimes to rest till pain is done.

© 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/grace2.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

4/9: Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

4/10: When Life Becomes a Sea of Pain

4/11: Grace Comes with a Patina of Pain

When Life Becomes a Sea of Pain

April 10, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem about both the isolation and need for companionship of someone in pain:

When life becomes a sea of pain

And every moment agony

I must endure again, again,

It is a curse to have to be.

And every moment agony,

And every longing fixed on death;

It is a curse to have to be

And fight by instinct for each breath.

And every longing fixed on death

Even as I must go on

And fight by instinct for each breath,

Sailing thus, though loved, alone.

Even as I must go on,

You watch me helpless from the shore;

Sailing thus, though loved, alone,

I need you with me all the more.

You watch me helpless from the shore

As I endure again, again;

I need you with me all the more

When life becomes a sea of pain.

© 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/whenli.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

4/9: Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

4/10: When Life Becomes a Sea of Pain

Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

April 9, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about running for one’s health:

Thirty-eight is running for her life.

Health, of course, is her concern, not fear.

It seems that humankind was born to run,

Regardless whether after game or from,

There being early on just axe and spear.

Yet even now, a daily run feels right.

Evolved to use our bodies, we must fight

Illnesses whose provenance is clear,

Grappling with the damage we have done,

Healing ourselves by running, running where

The labor of our longing greets the light.

© 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/38i.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

4/9: Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life