From the Distance of Our Separation

May 8, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on May 10.

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

A Mother’s Day poem from a grownup child looking back with love at a difficult adolescence:

From the distance of our separation

I see the whole of which I was a part;

I see the way my temper tore your heart,

And then the love beneath the laceration.

I see the landscape shaping our relation:

Your fear that I might choose with little art,

My anger at the dreams you would impart,

The ancient paths that lead to confrontation.

But knowledge needn't linger in regret,

Nor wait upon some wind to clear its sky.

We are none the worse for what is gone.

The moments that I never will forget

Are those whose careless grace must make me cry,

Safe within a heart forever won.

© 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/fromth.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Mother’s Day

5/4: Mothers Are the Archetypes of Love

5/5: I Know I’m No Replacement for a Child

5/6: Although a Daughter, I Write This as a Mother

5/7: Daughters-in-Law Are Our Grandchildren’s Mothers

5/8: From the Distance of Our Separation

Daughters-in-Law Are Our Grandchildren's Mothers

May 7, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on May 10.

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

A Mother’s Day poem to a daughter-in-law:

Daughters-in-law are our grandchildren's mothers.

As such, they carry our fortunes downstream.

Under their guidance, our hopes become others',

Giving their force to a much larger dream.

How lucky we are to have you for the carer

That nurtures the hearts of our hearts, that they may

Each be a lover, a giver and sharer,

Remaking the world in their image each day.

So do we all, like streams from the mountains,

In time become joined in the souls we have made,

Now mingled forever, eternal companions,

Linked by our love in a bond that won't fade.

As you in your noontime your work of love do,

We watch from the hillside, grateful for you.

© 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/daught.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Mother’s Day

5/4: Mothers Are the Archetypes of Love

5/5: I Know I’m No Replacement for a Child

5/6: Although a Daughter, I Write This as a Mother

5/7: Daughters-in-Law Are Our Grandchildren’s Mothers

Although a Daughter, I Write This as a Mother

May 6, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on May 10.

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

A Mother’s Day poem from a single mother to her mother, who, through the death of another daughter, is raising a granddaughter:

Although a daughter, I write this as a mother.

We're both mothers now, of child-daughters:

You, a grandmother forced to be a mother,

And I, a widow, alone with my fatherless daughter.

Death has thus shaped both our lives in ways

We would not have chosen. Yet life is still the bright,

Painfully lovely thing it was always:

Our children like dancers on a dark, splendid night,

Needing our loves as I needed yours; your love

The same song as ever, a lullaby I remember

So well from my time in your arms. We move

In slow spirals towards the stars. September

Has weeks like June, yet is closer to the fall.

Love has no answers, yet its beauty answers 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/althou.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Mother’s Day

5/4: Mothers Are the Archetypes of Love

5/5: I Know I’m No Replacement for a Child

5/6: Although a Daughter, I Write This as a Mother

I Know I'm No Replacement for a Child

May 5, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on May 10.

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

A Mother’s Day poem to a wife who has had several miscarriages and no children:

I know I’m no replacement for a child.

That’s a loss I know I can’t make whole.

But I would be the sun that on you smiled,

A bit of brightness that your heart beguiled

And burned away the sadness in your soul.

I know I’m no replacement for a child,

Nor could you by my love be reconciled

To what both time and chance from your womb stole.

But I would be the sun that on you smiled,

Or gentle wind that made your winter mild,

Warm enough to meliorate the cold.

I know I’m no replacement for a child.

There is no way that one could fill the wild

Emptiness your phantom arms enfold.

But I would be the sun that on you smiled,

That lighted up the world that death defiled

And gleamed across the bell that in you tolled.
I know I’m no replacement for a child.
But I would be the sun that on you smiled.

© 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/iknow9.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Mother’s Day

5/4: Mothers Are the Archetypes of Love

5/5: I Know I’m No Replacement for a Child

Mothers Are the Archetypes of Love

May 4, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on May 10.

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

A Mother’s Day poem about how a mother’s love is passed on through generations:

Mothers are the archetypes of love.

One loves as one has learned to love, and dances

To childhood tunes that one has learned by heart.

How daunting to assume that ancient part!

Enduring icon to untold romances

Replayed through generations of love’s art,

Still loving children whom one knows not of.

© 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/moth17.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Mother’s Day

5/4: Mothers Are the Archetypes of Love

Future Selves Must Wait, Apart

May 3, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is psychology at 41.

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

A psychological number poem about someone who is going through the pain of a divorce:

Future selves must wait, apart.

Old whispers I do not restrain

Roam in me wild. Only

Thus I come to live again.

Yet for now I cannot start.

One gets used to being lonely;

No one presses on the heart.

Emptiness makes room for 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/futsel.html. For more psychological poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/psychologicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Psychology at 41

4/27: Forty-One Is Filled with Precious Longing

4/28: Forty-One Lingers in the Moment

4/29: Forty-One Still Sometimes Spreads Her Wings

4/30: Find Your Wilderness Within Your Heart

5/1: Forests Can Be Rooted in a Soul

5/2: For the Lucky Ones, Life Is Full of Love

5/3: Future Selves Must Wait, Apart

For the Lucky Ones, Life Is Full of Love

May 2, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is psychology at 41.

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

A psychological number poem about living a life full of love both at work and at play:

For the lucky ones, life is full of love.

One hears its music through both night and day,

Returning in the darkness to its beauty.

The work is just as joyful as the play,

Yielding pleasure that resilient proves.

One dances through the doldrums of one's duty,

Not only for the ends but for the moves,

Each a kind of worship, prayer, praise.

© 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/forthe.html. For more psychological poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/psychologicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Psychology at 41

4/27: Forty-One Is Filled with Precious Longing

4/28: Forty-One Lingers in the Moment

4/29: Forty-One Still Sometimes Spreads Her Wings

4/30: Find Your Wilderness Within Your Heart

5/1: Forests Can Be Rooted in a Soul

5/2: For the Lucky Ones, Life Is Full of Love