Happiness Lies Just This Side of Heartache

April 3, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is foster children and adoption.

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

A Father’s Day poem from an adopted child to his or her adoptive father:

Happiness lies just this side of heartache,

As both are set aflame by one desire.

Perhaps one would best never light that fire,

Pursuing pleasure purely for its own sake.

Yet joy can be as fragile as a snowflake,

Full as oceans, brutal as barbed wire.

All your love is all that you require,

The grace that inundates the granite heartbreak.

How beautiful to take on such a burden,

Entering into contract with the void,

Responsible to some judgmental stranger,

'Ere meeting, for the seedtime of its soul!

Sing, then, of a quest that gains no guerdon,

Dearer far than pleasures now enjoyed,

A journey arduous and full of danger,

Yet sacred for the gift that is its goal.

© 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/happ19.html. For more poems about foster children and adoption, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adoptionpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Foster Children and Adoption

3/30: Happy Birthday, Dearest One

3/31: For All That You Have Given Me

4/1: Goodbye, My Darling Foster Child

4/2: Love Has Never Been About the Genes

4/3: Happiness Lies Just This Side of Heartache

Love Has Never Been About the Genes

April 2, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is foster children and adoption.

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

A Mother’s Day poem about the wolf who fostered Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome:

Love has never been about the genes,

But about beauty, and unforgiving grace.

The wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus

Had nothing in her heart but wrenching joy.

Oh, yes, of course, love also is a means,

Serving the survival of the race.

But more, it is a longing that redeems us,

An end itself no ending can destroy.

And so it is with mothers who love children

Not of their flesh, but of their nurturing.

The origin fades, the years of love remain

Vivid in the background of a life.

For Rome, the wolf will always be its kindred,

Ancestor who took fate's offering

And made it hers through sacrifice and pain,

The legacy that would her long days 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/loveh2.html. For more poems about foster children and adoption, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adoptionpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Foster Children and Adoption

3/30: Happy Birthday, Dearest One

3/31: For All That You Have Given Me

4/1: Goodbye, My Darling Foster Child

4/2: Love Has Never Been About the Genes

Goodbye, My Darling Foster Child

April 1, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is foster children and adoption.

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

A goodbye poem to a foster child who has to move on to a new foster home:

Goodbye, my darling foster child,

On to another home!

Open doors remain behind.

Do but turn, and you will find

Bestride your heart, my own.

You may the wind, unwept and wild,

Embrace, but not 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/goodb5.html. For more poems about foster children and adoption, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adoptionpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Foster Children and Adoption

3/30: Happy Birthday, Dearest One

3/31: For All That You Have Given Me

4/1: Goodbye, My Darling Foster Child

For All That You Have Given Me

March 31, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is foster children and adoption.

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

A Mother’s Day poem from an adopted daughter to her adoptive mother:

For all that you have given me,

I can return but love. For you

Bound up the wounds I did not see

And gave me hopes and passions new.

I can return but love for you,

Whose unmoved faith my heart did move,

And gave me hopes and passions new,

And loved me till I turned to love.

Whose unmoved faith did my heart move?

The mother of my heart, not blood,

Who loved me till I turned to love.

And I became the soul I would.

The mother of my heart, not blood,

Bound up the wounds I did not see.

And I became the soul I would

For all that you have given me.

© 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/foral2.html. For more poems about foster children and adoption, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adoptionpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Foster Children and Adoption

3/30: Happy Birthday, Dearest One

3/31: For All That You Have Given Me

Happy Birthday, Dearest One

March 30, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is foster children and adoption.

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

A birthday poem to a newly-adopted child:

Happy birthday, dearest one,

Sweet child of my heart!

We've become one family,

Of which you are a part.

And so I sing out equally

To all of those who are

Mine by blood or fortune blessed,

No more, no less my star!

We are one in love and joy,

In fondness and in worth,

And so as one we celebrate

This day, your day of birth!

© 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/happ11.html. For more poems about foster children and adoption, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adoptionpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Foster Children and Adoption

3/30: Happy Birthday, Dearest One

For a Mother, a Daughter, a Teacher, and a Friend

March 29, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number and 50^th birthday poem of thanks to a cultivator of dreams:

For a mother, a daughter, a teacher, and a friend:

In your domain, dreams grow lush and tall.

For cultivating dreams has been your end

Through planting lovely gardens, great and small,

Yielding dreams that unify us all.

© 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/foramo.html. For more birthday poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/birthdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Birthdays

3/23: Birthdays Are a Annual Excuse

3/24: For You, My Love, the Happiest of Birthdays

3/25: Happy Birthday, Darling

3/26: Birthdays Are the Tolling of

3/27: For Your Fiftieth Birthday Let Us Sing

3/28: Crystal Loves the Waves

3/29: For a Mother, a Daughter, a Teacher, and a Friend

Crystal Loves the Waves

March 28, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A birthday poem for a child whose mother is across an ocean on her birthday:

Crystal loves the waves

And takes them for a ride.

But just right now her mummy

Is on the other side.

As far as she can see

The waves break more and more.

But just right now her mummy

Is on the other shore.

It's a great big ocean

With lots of sharks and whales,

Octopus and sailboats

And big boats without sails,

Polar bears and penguins,

And lots and lots of fish.

But just right now Crystal

Would like to make one wish.

Crystal wishes that

The ocean were a puddle.

Then she could jump across,

And she and Mummy cuddle!

Wouldn't it be nice

If the ocean were a lake?

Then Crystal's mummy

Could have some birthday cake!

Crystal's mummy loves her,

But she is far away,

Far across the ocean

On Crystal's special day.

© 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/crysta.html. For more birthday poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/birthdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Birthdays

3/23: Birthdays Are a Annual Excuse

3/24: For You, My Love, the Happiest of Birthdays

3/25: Happy Birthday, Darling

3/26: Birthdays Are the Tolling of

3/27: For Your Fiftieth Birthday Let Us Sing

3/28: Crystal Loves the Waves