Happiness Is Wholly in One's Power

January 1, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is New Year’s Day.

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

A Happy New Year poem using a musical metaphor to describe the relationship between fate and will :

Happiness is wholly in one's power

As one provides the chords to fit the tune,

Pleased to play sweet music by the hour,

Pleased to harmonize one's passing gloom.

Yet there are days demanding dissonance,

Needing harsh accompaniment to pain.

Embrace them, then, and give them resonance,

With brass enough to brighten a refrain.

Years are symphonies of varied mood,

Each sketched out by fate, filled in by you.

As the woodwinds dance, the basses brood,

Resolved in beauty - crafted, yes, but true.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ63.html. For more New Year poems go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

12/31: Here We Are Again, Another Year

1/1: Happiness Is Wholly in One’s Power

Here We Are Again, Another Year

December 31, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is New Year’s Day.

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

A Happy New Year poem about making resolutions year after year:

Here we are again, another year!

Another chance to change, to do things better.

Praised be those who still believe and care!

Praised be hope, that would the will unfetter.

Yes, we know we’ve been through this before,

New Year after New Year. Yet we still

Endure in our desire for something more,

Wind-borne across bare treetops, bleak and chill.

Yes, we know our resolutions are

Easy to make and break, and still we make them;

And still pursue our dreams beyond the bar,

Resolved as ever, never to forsake them.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/herew6.html. For more New Year poems go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

12/31: Here We Are Again, Another Year

I'm Your Christmas Tree, All Brightly Lit

December 30, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25^th.

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

A Christmas poem to a child from his or her Christmas tree explaining its symbolic meaning:

I'm your Christmas tree, all brightly lit,

Hung with angels, colored balls, and elves.

Underneath my boughs your presents sit,

If you've behaved yourselves.

Why must we wait till early Christmas morn

To open up our brand-new games and toys?

Why gifts for us the day that Christ was born

If we're good girls and boys?

Now listen to your Christmas tree: I'm wise

In all the ways of faith that you must know.

I'm here because of what I symbolize:

Green through ice and snow.

There is a world beyond what we can see

Where, by grace of God, we can receive

God's greatest gift: to live eternally,

If only we believe.

Eternal life is what God gave to you

By sending down His son to live on Earth.

This was His gift, so Santa brings gifts, too,

To celebrate Christ's birth.

The baby Jesus got gifts on this day

Because, like any child, He loved to play.

And so God wants to share this special joy

With every girl and boy.

Believe God loves you as your parents do,

And takes great joy in giving gifts to you.

Live well and love, and evergreen like me,

You'll live eternally.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmastr.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

12/24: If All Were Now as It Was When

12/25: Angel Horses Flap Their Wings

12/26: Can Anyone Explain the Glow of Christmas

12/27: Can the Wind Across the Snow

12/28: Cheer Is Not What You’d Expect from Christmas

12/29: Cold Comfort in the Chastity of Sorrow

12/30: I’m Your Christmas Tree, All Brightly Lit

Cold Comfort in the Chastity of Sorrow

December 29, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25^th.

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

A Christmas poem about the need for faith if one is to find true comfort in life:

Cold comfort in the chastity of sorrow,

Having turned in pain towards innocence,

Reaching through the madness for the marrow,

Intent, for once, on yielding all pretence;

Sensing the necessity of love

Though feeling none but hunger well within,

Meaning nothing more than one might prove

As one finds little proof in death and sin:

So it was one night in Bethlehem.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/coldco.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

12/24: If All Were Now as It Was When

12/25: Angel Horses Flap Their Wings

12/26: Can Anyone Explain the Glow of Christmas

12/27: Can the Wind Across the Snow

12/28: Cheer Is Not What You’d Expect from Christmas

12/29: Cold Comfort in the Chastity of Sorrow

Cheer Is Not What You'd Expect from Christmas

December 28, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25^th.

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

A Christmas poem about how love survives the hassles of Christmas:

Cheer is not what you'd expect from Christmas:

Headaches are more like it, lack of sleep,

Raw nerves, rough words, waits to make you weep,

Irritable hours, days, intense, relentless.

So much money, time, so many dreams

Tied to one quick wanton winter's morning,

More an orgy than a merry dawning,

A ritual divorced from what it means.

Still, each year the love within it gleams.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/cheeri.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

12/24: If All Were Now as It Was When

12/25: Angel Horses Flap Their Wings

12/26: Can Anyone Explain the Glow of Christmas

12/27: Can the Wind Across the Snow

12/28: Cheer Is Not What You’d Expect from Christmas

Can the Wind Across the Snow

December 27, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25^th.

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

A Christmas poem about returning to childhood hope and love at Christmas time:

Can the wind across the snow

Howl enough of frozen pain?

Return to where the children go.

In love and hope begin again.

So did Christ return to Earth

That lovers might renew their love.

May all your longing bring to birth

A passion that no wind can move,

So strong no wind can stronger prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/canthe.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

12/24: If All Were Now as It Was When

12/25: Angel Horses Flap Their Wings

12/26: Can Anyone Explain the Glow of Christmas

12/27: Can the Wind Across the Snow

Can Anyone Explain the Glow of Christmas

December 26, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas, which was celebrated yesterday, December 25^th.

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

A Christmas poem to his or her family from someone who will miss the celebration:

Can anyone explain the glow of Christmas?

Holidays are candles in the night.

Rebirth comes from family and friends

In one bright blur of food and talk that ends

Still burning as a peaceful inner light.

There is no way to substitute for Christmas.

Miss it and no circumstance feels right.

All my heart's with you, yet I must miss this

Season thick with love and rich delight.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/canany.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas

12/24: If All Were Now as It Was When

12/25: Angel Horses Flap Their Wings

12/26: Can Anyone Explain the Glow of Christmas