Happy Fifty-First Anniversary

October 23, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A fifty-first anniversary poem about the commemoration after the big fiftieth anniversary:

Happy fifty-first anniversary!
A wavelet in the wash of last year's wave?
Perhaps. But may you ride it happily
Past the mark the last long groundswell laid,
Yielding to the gentle upward grade.

For every year sweeps just a little higher,
Inundating all that came before.
Foam bubbles where the incoming waves retire,
The champagne of the unresisting shore.
Years rise and fall across that timeless floor.

For you, may each year be a year of love
In which beneath the moment there is joy.
Relentless as the passing years may prove,
So may the lilt of life your spirits buoy,
The gift of love that time cannot destroy.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ97.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries
October 19: Happy Twenty-First Anniversary
October 20: Here in the Midst of Happiness
October 21: Eleven Years Is Not So Long a Time
October 22: Happy Twelfth Anniversary
October 23: Happy Fifty-First Anniversary

Happy Twelfth Anniversary

October 22, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A twelfth anniversary poem about taking the measure of love:

Happy twelfth anniversary!
A day to take the measure of your love,
Pleased that it still fits you comfortably,
Pleased your lives so beautiful have proved.
Years break across your wide and gentle strand,
Then draw back to curl and break again,
While you together on that shoreline stand,
Enduring through the rush of wave and wind.
Long may you live with wisdom and with grace,
Fortunate to share a sweet embrace,
Treasure you no longer have to seek,
Home where when you enter you find peace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ96.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries
October 19: Happy Twenty-First Anniversary
October 20: Here in the Midst of Happiness
October 21: Eleven Years Is Not So Long a Time
October 22: Happy Twelfth Anniversary

Eleven Years Is Not So Long a Time

October 21, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

An eleventh anniversary poem about how love conquers time:

Eleven years is not so long a time.
Life goes on, and who knows what comes next?
Each moment writes its own persuasive text,
Visions in which will and fate align.
Even so, love can conquer time,
Not bound by what might come before or next.
Years, not moments, write the lyric text,
Enduring as two lives for life align.
Although in time one can't know what comes next,
Relying on the moment's reasoned text,
Sing of love, that will the stars align.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/11year.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries
October 19: Happy Twenty-First Anniversary
October 20: Here in the Midst of Happiness
October 21: Eleven Years Is Not So Long a Time

Here in the Midst of Happiness

October 20, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A sixth anniversary poem about pausing to recognize one’s blessings:

Here in the midst of happiness,
A moment's pause: How might
People know when they are blessed,
Pressured day and night?
Years pass like some vast waterfall,
So quickly yet so slowly,
In droplets that are grace writ small,
Xxx's for you only,
The moments that you will recall -
Here, now, beautiful.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/herein.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries
October 19: Happy Twenty-First Anniversary
October 20: Here in the Midst of Happiness

Happy Twenty-First Anniversary

October 19, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A twenty-first anniversary poem about the play of will and fate in making one of two:

Happy twenty-first anniversary!
A time both to reflect and celebrate.
Perhaps the years turn choices into fate.
Perhaps one chooses daily what to be.
Yet though at every moment one is free,
Time and love join forces to create
Worlds in which we live, a passionate
Embrace that shapes the will's topography.
Now you are a part of who I am,
The wheel within the wheel I call myself,
Yearning with my yearning, as two branches
From one tree reach together for the sun.
Intimacy floods the inner dam,
Reaches out across the inner gulf,
Self-healing through a love that sings and dances,
Turning two time travelers into one.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ95.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries
October 19: Happy Twenty-First Anniversary

Fighting Back

October 18, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, is Native American history.

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

A poem for Indigenous Peoples’ Day adapted from the Constitution of the Indian Federation covering Native American tribes in Southern California in 1922:

FIGHTING BACK

Adapted from the Constitution of the Indian Federation (Tribes of Southern California), ca. 1922.

The name of this Indian organization shall be
THE MISSION INDIAN FEDERATION.

Its objects are to secure by legislation or otherwise
All the rights and benefits belonging to each Indian
Both singly and collectively;
To protect them against unjust laws, rules and regulations;
To guard the interests of each member
Against unjust and illegal treatment.

"HUMAN RIGHTS AND HOME RULE"
Shall be the slogan adopted
By the Mission Indian Federation.

The Mission Indian Federation
Shall be non-political and non-sectarian,
The discussion of which
Is most stringently forbidden
In the Councils and Conventions.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fighti.html. For more poems about indigenous peoples, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/indigenouspeoplesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Native American History
October 12: Treaties Are Made to Be Broken
October 13: To Shelter the American Character from Lasting Dishonor
October 14: A Graphic Illustration
October 15: Indian Babarities
October 16: Cultural Genocide
October 17: From the Great White Father to His Children
October 18: Fighting Back

From the Great White Father to His Children

October 17, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, is Native American history.

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

A poem for Indigenous Peoples’ Day adapted from a letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to all Native Americans in 1923 concerning their behavior:

FROM THE GREAT WHITE FATHER TO HIS CHILDREN

Adapted from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to All Indians, February 24, 1923:

Now,
What I want you to think about
Very seriously
Is that you must first of all
Try to make your own living,
Which you cannot do
Unless you work faithfully
And take care
Of what comes from your labor,
And go to dances or other meetings
Only when your home work
Will not suffer by it.

I do not want to deprive you
Of decent amusements
Or occasional feast days,
But you should not do evil
Or foolish things
Or take so much time
For these occasions.

No good comes
From your "give-away" custom
At dances
And it should be stopped.
It is not right
To torture your bodies
Or to handle poisonous snakes
In your ceremonies.
All such extreme things
Are wrong
And should be put aside
And forgotten.

You do yourselves
And your families
Great injustice
When at dances
You give away money
And other property,
Perhaps clothing,
A cow, a horse,
Or a team and wagon,
And then,
After an absence of several days,
Go home to find everything
Going to waste,
And yourselves
With less to work with
Than you had before.

I could issue an order
Against these useless
And harmful performances,
But I would much rather
You give them up
Of your own free will.
And, therefore,
I ask you now
In this letter
To do so.

If, at the end of one year,
The reports which I receive
Show that you are doing
As requested,
I shall be very glad,
For I will know
That you are making progress
In other
And more important ways.

But if the reports show
That you reject this plea,
Then some other course
Will have to be taken.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fromt2.html. For more poems about indigenous peoples, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/indigenouspeoplesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Native American History
October 12: Treaties Are Made to Be Broken
October 13: To Shelter the American Character from Lasting Dishonor
October 14: A Graphic Illustration
October 15: Indian Babarities
October 16: Cultural Genocide
October 17: From the Great White Father to His Children