The Night My Heart Stopped

 A poem about a moment of silent communication between the poet and a racoon:

The night my heart stopped
I was sleeping with my wife
In a tent at the edge of a wood.

The Earth spun and spun.
Silent, in a cold sweat,
I felt myself going under.

I crawled out of the tent,
Careful not to wake my wife,
And onto a chaise lounge.

Under the spinning stars
My heart started and stopped,
Started and stopped, started . . .

I lay where a path emerged
From the wood, and along the path
Came a large raccoon.

He walked over to me
And raised himself up
Not four feet from my eyes.

We stared at each other
With focused understanding,
Words without words,

Eyes beyond eyes,
A giving and a taking
That stilled my raucous heart.

Satisfied, he lowered
Himself to the ground
And turned toward the wood.

"Thank you, brother," I said,
"Thank you." But he was gone,
Slipped back into darkness.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Falling Snow. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/theni2.html. For more poems about animals, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/animalpoems.html .

Happy Fifteenth Anniversary

 A 15^th anniversary poem comparing marriage to two trees planted close together:

 

Happy fifteenth anniversary!

A long time to be planted side by side!

Praised be those whose love and faith abide.

Praised be those who would deep rooted be.

Years entangle closely planted trees,

From canopy to root together tied,

Interwoven tightly, so that eyed

Full flower, which is which is hard to see.

Two trunks, one greater whole, both root and branch,

Each able to withstand a stronger wind,

Each more intact together than alone.

Nor is this close proximity by chance,

This will to be so intimately combined,

Having each for each shed leaves on stone.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Kiss the Sky. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hap103.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Labor's a Commodity, like Fish

 

A Labor Day poem about the evil of treating labor like any other commodity:

 

Labor's a commodity, like fish,

As children are fast-frozen and filleted,

Beating down the price. Fortunes are made

On selling to us all so cheap a dish.

Remember how the world is being run,

Determined by the market's iron laws

As slaves and children jingle in its jaws.

Yet is there nothing, nothing to be done?

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Chariots of War. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/labors.html. For more Labor Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/labordaypoems.html .

Eighty-Two Lives by a Waterfall

 A philosophical number poem about the simultaneous experience of time and eternity:

 

Eighty-two lives by a waterfall,

In tune with time and the music of its flow.

Grace holds its tongue as one goes through its song,

Here for aye, though no one’s here for long,

Time falling, falling to the rocks below,

Yet fluttering in place like a wind-blown shawl.

 

To be for just one breath is to be all.

Words are ripples of what one might know.

One flows beneath what one gets right or wrong.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Wandering Soul. By Asher Fulero. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/82a.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

Sing of Life That, Though It Has an End

 A philosophical number poem about the experience of eternity within time:

Sing of life that, though it has an end,

Embodies what does not and will be ever,

Viewpoint on eternity that lends

Existence the illusion of forever.

Nor should one fail to recognize this gift

That one shares ultimately with quince and slime:

Years down which one’s little boat may drift,

Taking one through landscapes beyond time.

How beautiful to live and simply be,

Removed from time by love and reverence.

Each moment is a brief eternity;

Each eon also, though not quite so dense.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Audio and Video Music: Chords of Harmony. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

To see this poem on my site, go to sing22.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

Factor In the Fickleness of Fortune

 A number poem about how best to dream as one gets older:

 

Factor in the fickleness of fortune

In calculating charts that can be read.

For though the numbers do not lie, the data

Trend towards unknown variables instead.

Yet one must dream, albeit with more caution.

 

There is no substitute for an equation.

When one’s a certain age, there is less later.

One dreams more wisely as one looks ahead.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Timeless. By Lauren Duski. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/facto2.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

For What Does One Live, but for Goodness and Beauty

 

A number poem about the beauty of a life devoted to art:

 

For what does one live, but for goodness and beauty?

One’s goodness is beauty; one’s beauty is good.

Remember that when what one loves is one’s duty,

To labor brings one all the joy that one would.

Yet this does not always work out as it should.

 

Fear not the days of frustration and sorrow;

Old wounds reopened, new ones unhealed.

Undaunted by pain, you’ll turn back to tomorrow,

Renewed by the love that sustains your ideal.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: White River. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/forwh2.html. For more poems about a variety of professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html .