All Winter Long the Willows Wait

December 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is about willow trees sleeping through the winter.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

All winter long the willows wait,

Nor more nor less than willing,

Glad to be, but just a bit

Entropic in their chilling.

Life longs ever for rebirth,

Awake to its long sleep,

As willows need their leaves for breath,

Numb until they weep.

Do, then, winter well beneath

More blankets than you know,

Immense as any mustard seed,

Content to dream for now,

Holding in your arms a light

As Earth slides through its bitter night,

Ever doomed to bliss and blight

Lest things too easy go.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/allwin.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

November 30: The Wind Brings Down Its Icy Load

December 1: Take from Winter Just a Bit of Hope

December 2: All Winter Long the Willows Wait

Take from Winter Just a Bit of Hope

December 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is about hope and the blessedness of life even in winter.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Take from winter just a bit of hope

In reckoning the blessedness of life,

Nor wonder why the wind, in bitter flight,

Around our reasoned corners wailing goes.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/takefr.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

November 30: The Wind Brings Down Its Icy Load

December 1: Take from Winter Just a Bit of Hope

The Wind Brings Down Its Icy Load

November 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem contrasts the bitter cold without with the warmth within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The wind brings down its icy load;

Curtains close across the sky.

Travelers shudder on the road:

There will be shelter by-and-by.

All one has seen and one has sown

Now feeds the feasts of fantasy.

Merriment goes on within;

Trees and candles dance with light.

Without, the world is grey and grim;

Within the house, all is bright.

How might one stand against the wind

But with the joy one brings to it?

The window hints of happiness;

The wanderer walks quickly past.

The week-old ice is treacherous;

The snow is falling thick and fast.

Shelter cannot be a place

For those whose spirits will not rest.

Bells ring through the chilly air;

People purchase gifts on time.

Windows, doorways, front yards bear

Of inner truth the outward sign:

Love beneath commercial cheer;

Loneliness decked out in din.

The season freezes all but love;

Winter grips the waterways.

Upon white meadows nothing moves;

Life sleeps through the nights and days.

O love! At once both flame and fuel,

Light well what meets the inner gaze!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thewi2.html. For more poems about the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

November 30: The Wind Brings Down Its Icy Load

January

November 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is written for January, born into the winter cold.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

January waits, unsentimental,

Again born into beauty, cruel and kind.

Nor cold nor darkness fools the wily child,

Unweeping in a brutal wind and wild,

As the Earth turns passionless and blind.

Rejoicing in her birth, she dons the mantle,

Yearning to recall what lies behind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/januar.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem anticipates the special beauty of winter.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

And now, with the pensive coming of the winter,

It’s time to see the beauty of bare trees

And glimpse the rugged silver of the river

So long hidden by the summer leaves.

It’s time to feel the crisp, cold clarity

Of frost that rips right through the veil of air,

Revealing distant mountains one can see

Distinctly, as though suddenly quite near.

Oh, yes, one may be shuddering with the cold

And shuffling like a penguin ‘cross the ice.

Yet as the year comes closer to its close,

It’s time to treasure well the lingering light.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/andnow.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming ofthe Winter

When God's as Real as Santa Claus

November 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is about whom to thank when you don’t believe in God.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

When God's as real as Santa Claus,

And temples are works of art;

When the Bible's living literature,

And the Universe has no heart:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When the ritual vestments of faith

Are seen only from outside;

And the strength to live in the void

Becomes a matter of pride:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When life seems bursting with beauty,

But everything's accidental;

When calling the noumenal "Thou"

Seems impossibly sentimental:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When death is an absolute end,

And pain lets one barely get by;

Prayer's a harmless delusion

And the solace of heaven a lie:

One still feels grateful,

But to whom?

This human urge to say thank you,

Unavoidably orphic,

Requires, just for a moment,

A Creator, anthropomorphic:

So that one can feel grateful

To Whom.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/santa.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 26: To Live Is to Be Prey

November 27: When God’s as Real as Santa Claus

To Live Is to Be Prey

November 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about eating and being eaten.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To live is to be prey. Meals for microbes.

Horror hangs in the blood like a barracuda

As packs of ravenous viruses howl at the moon.

No flesh is but food. Fierce hunger waits at the crossings

Knowing nothing but lust for the taste of our gristle,

Singing hallelujahs to the Lord.

Give thanks, then, too, for the gift of robust hunger;

In humble gratitude, for the legacy of lust.

Vividly we live and die, our suffering

In perfect harmony with our feeding frenzy;

Nor can we be else but both murderers and murdered,

Grateful for the unsought grace of being.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/tolive.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 26: To Live Is to Be Prey