Given That There Is No Explanation

 

A Chanukah poem about how Creation is equally a mystery to those who turn to reason or faith for an explanation:

 

Given that there is no explanation,

And that the provenance of the Creation,

Belief or no, remains a mystery,

Regarding how the whole thing came to be,

It makes no sense to squander sense on it.

Enjoy the candles, and when the last one's lit,

Love their loveliness, however lit.

 

Even so, one seeks an explanation:

Like one for Being, though there's none for it;

Like one for the creation of Creation,

Eternal Being bringing all to be.

Nor would no cause be less a mystery.

 

So faith and reason end in mystery,

Equally ignorant of what lit

The light from which all beings came to be,

Having no conclusive explanation

As to the existence of Creation,

Nor hint of what might be the cause of it,

Despite the tangibility of it.

Even so, the veil of mystery

Leads one to imagine the Creation,

Inventing how and why the void was lit,

Zealous for an ethical explanation,

A myth that makes love be the cause of be.

 

But one need not believe a myth to be

Open to the loveliness of it,

Nor need a theological explanation,

Nor care to solve a meta-mystery.

It might have been a miracle that lit

Eight days the lamps, as some say at Creation

A voice out of the void called forth Creation,

Needing out of love for us to be,

Demanding out of love our souls be lit,

Choosing not to be alone. It

Acts as fair use of a mystery,

Repurposing the role of explanation,

Making explanations of Creation

Exquisite art, that mystery might be

Not claimed by faith, but by the lamps it lit.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Heart Strings. By Coyote Hearing. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/given4.html. For more Chanukah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

December Finds Himself Again a Child

 

A calendar poem for December:

 

December finds himself again a child
Even as he undergoes his age.
Cold and early darkness now descend,
Embracing sanctuaries of delight.
More and more he stares into the night,
Becoming less and less concerned with ends,
Emblem of the innocent as sage
Restored to wonder by what he must yield.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Please. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/decemb.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

Sing of the Annual Cavalcade of Seasons

 

A Season’s Greetings poem about how the tilt of the Earth’s axis affects so many aspects of our lives:

Sing of the annual cavalcade of seasons,
Each passing through the portals of the heart,
A slow parade of brightly colored passions
Swirling round and round the rimless dark!
One sings in harmony with what one hears,
Now consonant, now dissonant, yet ever
Seasonal, as the ponderous pageant turns
Gracefully from one year to another.
Remember that a cosmic accident,
Earth’s tilted axis vis-à-vis its sun,
Ever shapes the heart’s environment,
The music that pervades the songs within.
In every thought and feeling, every pleasure,
Need, desire, pain, regret, perception,
Granted that free choice seems in one’s power,
Sing what you alone could not have written.

 © by Nicholas Gordon

 Audio and Video Music: Borderless. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/sing23.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

 

A Thanksgiving poem thanking God for the gift of understanding how little we can understand:

 

Thank you for the gift of understanding
How little one can hope to understand.
A universe is all we have at hand,
Nothing too confusing or demanding.
Knowledge is like spindrift on the sea
Sitting on the surface of a wave.
Granted one can know how things behave,
Ill-formed to know how they might come to be.
Vast Your Being, beyond imagination!
Immeasurable, of neither shape nor size.
Nor ought one lose one's sense of adoration,
Gift equal to the gifts of mind and eyes.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Allemande. By Wahneta Meixsell. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/than47.html. For more Thanksgiving poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html .

From Teachers, There Is Much That One Can Learn

 

A poem about the teaching profession:

 

From teachers, there is much that one can learn.
One ought not judge their worth by what they earn.
Rather, it's the task one should judge by:
To teach not only what, but how and why,
Yielding goods no teacher's pay could buy.

Even though teaching's a profession,
In fact, it is for many a vocation,
Given the knowledge and the expertise,
Having earned the requisite degrees
To touch the soul of each new generation.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

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

 

Voices of the Dead Are All Around Me

 

A Veterans Day poem about the psychological difficulty of returning to civilian life:

 

Voices of the dead are all around me.
Everyone alive seems much less real.
The smoke and screams and bombs and blood surround me,
Enduring through the love I still can't feel.
Reality is rarely in the present
As truth and falsehood are defined by pain.
Nor can I stand one moment that is pleasant.
Sanity to me just seems insane.
Death is more attractive than a wife,
And loneliness a far less lonely life.
Yet I must turn and somehow live again.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: End of Time. By Ugonna Onyekwe. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/voice2.html. For more Veterans Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

November Knows the Beauty of a Line

 

A calendar poem for November:

 

November knows the beauty of a line:
One stroke across the heart of a gray sky.
Vacancy is where true vision lies,
Eternity redacted into time.
Memory now moves into the garden,
Bringing with it music never heard.
Each slender, naked branch is like a word
Recalling the lost happiness of Eden.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Elegy. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/novemb.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .