Before Earth, Water, and Air Is Fire

December 9, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is darkness and light, in honor of Chanukah (or Hanukkah), the festival of lights, the first night of which is December 10.

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

A poem for Hanukkah about the elemental fire of Creation within us:

Before earth, water, and air is fire,
On which all subsists,
Not as flame on oil,
Nor candle on wax, but with-
In, as in us, each
Element in love.

So we are:
Each organ mad with lust, tingling,
The blood eager to cleanse the spleen, nerves
Hungering for connection.

Gifts are tongues of flame.
A blood cell delivers its gift of oxygen. Why?
Brain cells surrender memories.
Reasons are beside the point.
In love we do only what we cannot help,
Each pinpoint moved by frenzy,
Longing to give, to be accepted, consumed.

Most of us have ideological toes,
Or live brightly, with understandings
More reasonable than real.
Around us, within us, is fire,
Non-consuming,
Delivered from flame.
Do we see it?
Absolute, messageless.
Do we see this dark, unradiant fire?

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/earth.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Darkness and Light
December 7: And Thou Shalt Love
December 8: Cheerful Lights Dance Within Your Window
December 9: Before Earth, Water, and Air Is Fire

Cheerful Lights Dance Within Your Window

December 8, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is darkness and light, in honor of Chanukah (or Hanukkah), the festival of lights, the first night of which is December 10.

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

A poem for Hanukkah about the need, even in the midst of holiday cheer, never to forget the horrors of the Holocaust:

Cheerful lights dance within your window,
Happy to dispel a bit of darkness.
As you display your faith, remember when
No light was light enough to light the wind.
Underneath our joy there must be sorrow
Kindled by a willing act of witness,
A turn to share in love again, again,
Horrors that we would not leave behind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/cheerf.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Darkness and Light
December 7: And Thou Shalt Love
December 8: Cheerful Lights Dance Within Your Window

And Thou Shalt Love

December 7, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is darkness and light, in honor of Chanukah (or Hanukkah), the festival of lights, the first night of which is December 10.

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

A poem for Hanukkah about light, darkness, and faith:

AND THOU SHALT LOVE

i

All I ever looked for was happiness:
Not for myself only; also for mine.
Dumbstruck, I learned the futility of being good.

Tell me, how does one get pleasure out of life?
How, when so much engenders pain?
Only maudlin moments of forgetfulness
Unloose the tears that turn the blood to wine.

Simple Simon went into a wood,
Hoping to return his damaged wife.
A drunken druid drove him forth again,
Laughing like a god at his distress:
Take her, fool! For you she'll do just fine!

Longing comes easy in darkness. I should
Open my eyes, turn on the light. A knife,
Viciously twisting, argues for pain.
Eagerly I press on, in fear of nothingness.

ii

There! Do you see the light
High on that mountain?
Even here there is

Light! Do you see it?
Only darkness. You see
Reflections of dreams. Here
Darkness covers even

Tomorrow. Who can
Hope any longer for light?
Yet there it is! We must

Go towards it, or else--
Or be of those who love
Darkness, luminous darkness . . .

iii

Wealth isolates, hardship unites.
In darkness people hold hands.
Those only who cry out are comforted.
However we live, death is the same.

And so we come to know Thy name:
Lounging easy in our rights,
Loving only as need demands,

The grace most sought uncelebrated,
Happiness inextricable from shame.
Yet we, too, have known lidless nights.

Hope is not for one who understands.
Even blameless, we are rejected.
All are lost who win the game.
Reason renders only lights.
Those who fear know Thy commands.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/andtho.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Darkness and Light
December 7: And Thou Shalt Love

How Might One Be Happy but by Loving

December 6, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A Happy Holidays poem about love as the source of happiness:

How might one be happy but by loving?
All one is will vanish in the sea.
Perhaps the point of life is in the sharing.
Perhaps the soul's beyond the shores of me.
Years pass, and what does one accumulate?
How might one find permanence in time?
Only love such hunger compensates,
Lending life its beauty line by line.
In everything there is, there is a flame
Deeper than the passions one can name,
An oil lamp that never will go out
Yielding light beyond belief or doubt,
Source of all that answers loss and pain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/howm12.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Holiday Season
November 30: How Good to Celebrate Both Holidays
December 1: Here We Have Three Holidays
December 2: Health and Happiness to You and Yours
December 3: There Is No Better Time than Now
December 4: Happy, Happy Holidays to You2
December 5: Holidays Are Happy Days2
December 6: How Might One Be Happy but by Loving

Holidays Are Happy Days2

December 5, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A Happy Holidays poem about the difficulty of accepting happiness:

Holidays are happy days,
Albeit with some stress.
Praised be those content to be
Pleased with happiness.
Yes, one cannot do it all,
However hard one tries.
One sacrifices much for love.
Life's a compromise.
In treasuring the things one has,
Delivered from regret,
A lover finds the holidays,
Year in and out, a song of praise,
Sung with joy. And yet …

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/holi13.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Holiday Season
November 30: How Good to Celebrate Both Holidays
December 1: Here We Have Three Holidays
December 2: Health and Happiness to You and Yours
December 3: There Is No Better Time than Now
December 4: Happy, Happy Holidays to You2
December 5: Holidays Are Happy Days2

Happy, Happy Holidays to You2

December 4, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A Happy Holidays poem to a grandniece about how her great-uncle’s years of love for her grandfather translate into close ties of love between him and her:

Happy, happy holidays to you!
A chance to wish you well, and to renew,
Perhaps, the ties that bind us to each other,
Perhaps to strengthen those we might uncover.
You are bound to me by years of love,
However distant they might to you prove,
Old, persistent childhood memories
Lingering like poignant melodies,
In which your grandfather, a child like me,
Dreamed of what his future life might be,
As I worshipped him, my older brother,
Years and years before his first-born daughter
Sang you in her knowing arms to sleep.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hap100.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Holiday Season
November 30: How Good to Celebrate Both Holidays
December 1: Here We Have Three Holidays
December 2: Health and Happiness to You and Yours
December 3: There Is No Better Time than Now
December 4: Happy, Happy Holidays to You2

There Is No Better Time than Now

December 3, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A Happy Holidays poem to a child of mixed religious heritage about the holidays as a time of celebration:

There is no better time than now
To celebrate and sing
The music of the holidays,
The songs that sweet thoughts bring!

Holidays are happy days,
Full of joy and fun,
Candles, lights, menorahs, trees,
And gifts for everyone!

Though the days are short and cold,
There is no better time
To laugh and play and happy be,
And generous and kind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ther45.html. For more Happy Holidays poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Holiday Season
November 30: How Good to Celebrate Both Holidays
December 1: Here We Have Three Holidays
December 2: Health and Happiness to You and Yours
December 3: There Is No Better Time than Now