Your Children Ought Not Be Your Legacy

June 15, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which this year will be celebrated tomorrow, June 16.

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

A Father’s Day poem warning fathers not to burden their children with their own ambitions:

Your children ought not be your legacy,

For that’s a burden far too great to bear.

You’re on your own, as you were meant to be,

Proud parent of your treasured progeny

Without conditions, as is only fair.

Your children ought not be your legacy:

They must be themselves, as generously

You shine upon them, all the while aware

You’re on your own, as you were meant to be,

The sole contender of your destiny,

No matter how much love you choose to share.

Your children ought not be your legacy,

Inspired to fulfill your fantasy

And not their own, displaced beyond repair.

You’re on your own, as you were meant to be,

As all are in our longings ultimately,           

Though we remain in one another’s care.

Your children ought not be your legacy.

You’re on your own, as you were meant 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/yourch.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/10: A Little Boy Needs Daddy

6/11: The Pursed Lips That Pursue a Vagrant Thought

6/12: Fathers and Daughters Have a Romance

6/13: I Hate You, Dad, for What You Did

6/14: You Taught Me How to Love You

6/15: Your Children Ought Not Be Your Legacy

You Taught Me How to Love You

June 14, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which this year will be celebrated on June 16.

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

A Father’s Day poem to a father who is deceased:

You taught me how to love you by

The way that you loved me;

And by your unseen sustenance,

To see what you could see.

You gave to me through who you were

The gift of what I am.

Your pride in me is now my pride;

Your faith, my caravan.

Your life does not conclude with death,

Nor will it end with mine,

For all the lives I touch, you touch,

And so on through all time.

© 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/youta2.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/10: A Little Boy Needs Daddy

6/11: The Pursed Lips That Pursue a Vagrant Thought

6/12: Fathers and Daughters Have a Romance

6/13: I Hate You, Dad, for What You Did

6/14: You Taught Me How to Love You

I Hate You, Dad, for What You Did

June 13, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which this year will be celebrated on June 16.

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

A Father’s Day poem about a child who was abused by his father:

I hate you, Dad, for what you did

To me when I was just a child,

A helpless thing whom you could beat

Until the excess bile was drained.

To me, when I was just a child,

You were God unmerciful

Until the excess bile was drained

And you were once again my friend.

You were God unmerciful,

And I was Satan, Lord of Hell,

Until you were again my friend

And curdled my last drops of love.

And I was Satan, Lord of Hell,

A helpless thing whom you could beat

Until you curdled all my love.

I hate you, Dad, for what you did.

© 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/ihatey.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/10: A Little Boy Needs Daddy

6/11: The Pursed Lips That Pursue a Vagrant Thought

6/12: Fathers and Daughters Have a Romance

6/13: I Hate You, Dad, for What You Did

Fathers and Daughters Have a Romance

June 12, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which this year will be celebrated on June 16.

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

A Father’s Day poem about the depth of the bond between fathers and daughters:

Fathers and daughters have a romance

That goes on for the rest of their lives,

Destined to ripen and age as they dance

Through the days of their husbands and wives.

Up near the surface their love is distinct,

Like a garden surveyed in the sun,

In which seedtime and full bloom are credibly linked

By a consciousness shared and hard won.

Deep down below, where the world is a dream,

And the dream is a world of its own,

All manner of memories the moments redeem

In a place where one's never alone.

© 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/fathe4.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/10: A Little Boy Needs Daddy

6/11: The Pursed Lips That Pursue a Vagrant Thought

6/12: Fathers and Daughters Have a Romance

The Pursed Lips That Pursue a Vagrant Thought

June 11, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which this year will be celebrated on June 16.

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

A Father’s Day poem about how shared characteristics help bond parent to child:

The pursed lips that pursue a vagrant thought,

The twinkle that accompanies a smile –

Ripples in a stream by sunlight caught

Gleaming on your child’s face unsought,

Bits of turbulence drowned boulders rile.

The pursed lips that pursue a vagrant thought,

The playful love of irony that’s wrought

By centuries, millennia of style –

Ripples in a stream by sunlight caught

As generations flow through lifetimes fraught

With rocks and tree limbs, rippling all the while.

The pursed lips that pursue a vagrant thought,

Passed on and on through love, are not for naught,

But deeply bond the parent to the child,

Ripples in a stream by sunlight caught,

Dear reiterations dearly bought,

Yet calculated to one’s heart beguile.

The pursed lips that pursue a vagrant thought --

Ripples in a stream by sunlight caught.

© 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/thepur.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/10: A Little Boy Needs Daddy

6/11: The Pursed Lips That Pursue a Vagrant Thought

A Little Boy Needs Daddy

June 10, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which this year will be celebrated on June 16.

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

A Father’s Day poem about various ways in which a child might need a father. (For a girl, just substitute girl for boy and her for his or him.)

A little boy needs Daddy

For many, many things:

Like holding him high off the ground

Where the sunlight sings!

Like being the deep music

That tells him all is right

When he awakens frantic with

The terrors of the night.

Like being the great mountain

That rises in his heart

And shows him how he might get home

When all else falls apart.

Like giving him the love

That is his sea and air,

So diving deep or soaring high

He'll always find him there.

© 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/alitt2.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/10: A Little Boy Needs Daddy

Fortune Often Will Return the Favor

June 9, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is fate, fortune, and free will.

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

A philosophical number poem about how one might influence one’s fortune:

Fortune often will return the favor.

If one serves well, then one will be well served.

For most, the problem will be seeing it,

Thinking that their fate is not deserved.

Yet fate’s the destination of behavior.

Though one might be a droplet in a stream

Hurtling through the rapids of one’s times,

Remember that one also walks on roads,

Ever choosing to descend or climb,

Ever more in charge than it might seem.

© 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/fort10.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fate, Fortune, and Free Will

6/3: Fortune Comes Embellished with Small Print

6/4: Fortune Is a Patchwork

6/5: Choice Is Just a Ripple

6/6: Freedom Doesn’t Come from Being Free

6/7: Forty-Three Has Been Well Served by Fortune

6/8: Souls Are Sovereign in Their Own Domain

6/9: Fortune Often Will Return the Favor