Gifts Come in Many Shapes and Guises

January 2, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is pregnancy and childbirth, in honor of the birth of a new year.

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

A poem about adopting a new-born infant:

Gifts come in many shapes and guises:

Apples meant to nurture seeds

Wind up in many strange disguises,

Ministering to other needs.

When a soul comes into being,

Hope anew springs from the Earth:

No one has the gift of seeing

What new gift comes with each birth.

What brings a young girl savage pain

Can bring joy to a man and wife:

One cannot weigh the loss or gain,

But one can always treasure life.

Life's a gift beyond what we

Can know or understand or say:

There's a nonstop ecstasy

Beneath the hum of every day.

There's a love so radical

That nothing can escape its glow,

Luminous and magical,

Everywhere we are or go.

And so we take this gift of love,

A little piece of it, new-born,

And feel some lovely fortune move

Within us towards eternal dawn.

© 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/gifts2.html. For more poems about adoption, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adoptionpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Pregnancy and Childbirth

12/30: Creation Is the Proper Form of Love

12/31: Evidence of Paradise

1/1: There Is No Greater Miracle than This

1/2: Gifts Come in Many Shapes and Guises

There Is No Greater Miracle than This

January 1, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is pregnancy and childbirth, in honor of the birth of a new year.

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

A poem comparing the birth of a child to the miracle of Creation:

There is no greater miracle than this:

The quickening of flesh within the womb,

Summoning an angel to a kiss.

Ay, me! Again the gist of Genesis:

The bolt of light darts vast against the gloom!

There is no greater miracle than this.

Ay, me! Again the voice of the abyss,

Tailoring the temple to the tomb,

Summoning an angel to a kiss.

The paradox defies analysis:

Soul from sand, sanctity from spume.

There is no greater miracle than this.

Nor ought one such absurdity dismiss:

Infinity confined to one small room,

Summoning an angel to a kiss.

Life walks upon a sea of nothingness,

Eternal in the beauty of its bloom.

There is no greater miracle than this:

Summoning an angel to a kiss.

© 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/ther23.html. For more poems about pregnancy and birth, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/birthpregnancypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Pregnancy and Childbirth

12/30: Creation Is the Proper Form of Love

12/31: Evidence of Paradise

1/1: There Is No Greater Miracle than This

Evidence of Paradise

December 31, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is pregnancy and childbirth, in honor of the birth of a new year.

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

A name and Christmas poem comparing the birth of a child to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem:

Evidence of paradise

Veils its rainbowed wings,

Enters life like one of us,

Like spirit wrapped in things.

Yet angels sing in Bethlehem

No more than in Mobile,

And kings careen through Rocky Mount

No less than through Jezreel.

Dream, then, of the bitter wind,

Nights for which one yearns

In sorrow and unsullied joy,

Child on whom life turns,

Older than the universe,

Love haunting, hurting, healing, worse,

An anguished joy one can't reverse

So long as blood still burns.

© 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/evide2.html. For more poems about pregnancy and childbirth, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/birthpregnancypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Pregnancy and Childbirth

12/30: Creation Is the Proper Form of Love

12/31: Evidence of Paradise

Creation Is the Proper Form of Love

December 30, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is pregnancy and childbirth, in honor of the birth of a new year.

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

A congratulations poem on the birth of a child:

Creation is the proper form of love,

Opening a new universe to Being.

Nor will not love renew the act of seeing,

Given what the passing years will prove.

Remember well what service you must render

As laborers in a vineyard not your own.

The life that you have made is but on loan,

Underwritten by a well-heeled lender.

Let it then be yours this little while,

And lavish it unstintingly with joy,

The grace no later demons can destroy,

Inheritance no fortune can defile.

Out of who you are comes what you do:

Now both of you live well for more than two,

So that with love you may new life beguile.

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

This week’s theme: Pregnancy and Childbirth

12/30: Creation Is the Proper Form of Love

Candles Dance on Hanukkah

December 29, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas and Hanukkah. The first night of Hanukkah was Dec. 22, and Christmas was celebrated on Dec. 25.

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

A Hanukkah poem to a child in which the candles seem to die and go to Heaven:

Candles dance on Hanukkah,

And on the very last night

Nine candles – eight and the shamos – dance,

Dancing with delight.

Look at them dancing down and down,

Each to candle Heaven bound,

Safe within God's 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/candl4.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas and Hanukkah

12/23: Isn’t It Nice to Celebrate Twice

12/24: Because All Things Are Made of Light

12/25: Merry Christmas to My Wife

12/26: Because Each One of Us Is Equally

12/27: Christmas Is as Christmas Does

12/28: Maybe There’s No Magic in the Morning

12/29: Candles Dance on Hanukkah

Maybe There's No Magic in the Morning

December 28, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas and Hanukkah. The first night of Hanukkah was Dec. 22, and Christmas was celebrated on Dec. 25.

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

A Christmas poem about the possibility of reclaiming one’s joy in life:

Maybe there’s no magic in the morning,

Even at the dawn of Christmas Day.

Remember that life changes without warning,

Revealing what it will in its own way.

Years ago the world just seemed to dance.

Christmas shimmered in the rising sun.

Happiness was savored in advance,

Rich in treasured memories to come.

In every moment still that joy survives,

Still skipping like a child down the street.

There is a silent lilt to all our lives,

Music that no sorrow can defeat.

As Christmas once made magical the dawn,

So one’s joy in life can be reborn.

© 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/mayb18.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas and Hanukkah

12/23: Isn’t It Nice to Celebrate Twice

12/24: Because All Things Are Made of Light

12/25: Merry Christmas to My Wife

12/26: Because Each One of Us Is Equally

12/27: Christmas Is as Christmas Does

12/28: Maybe There’s No Magic in the Morning

Christmas Is as Christmas Does

December 27, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas and Hanukkah. The first night of Hanukkah was Dec. 22, and Christmas was celebrated on Dec. 25.

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

A Christmas poem about how one makes one’s own Christmas:

Christmas is as Christmas does.

How one lived is how life was.

Rejoicing is what brings one joy.

Inner winds one’s spirits buoy.

So must one create each year

The fit occasion for one’s cheer,

Making Christmas beautiful,

A duty more than dutiful,

Sustaining what one holds most dear.

© 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/chris5.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas and Hanukkah

12/23: Isn’t It Nice to Celebrate Twice

12/24: Because All Things Are Made of Light

12/25: Merry Christmas to My Wife

12/26: Because Each One of Us Is Equally

12/27: Christmas Is as Christmas Does