Pretend There Were No Memories

April 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith and Jewish identity, in honor of Passover, which begins on the evening of April 22.

Today’s poem is a Passover, or Pesach, poem about the importance of historical memory.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Pretend there were no memories,

Each generation on its own.

So would miracles and crimes

Alike be lost to their own times.

Crazed witnesses would on their knees

Haunt desperately our doors of stone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/prete2.html. For more Passover poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith and Jewish Identity.

April 18: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale

April 19: How Best Can We Remember We Were Slaves

April 20: Part of Being Jewish Is a Choice

April 21: Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder

April 22: Palpably, You Are in This Room

April 23: Pretend There Were No Memories

Palpably, You Are in This Room

April 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith and Jewish identity, in honor of Passover, which begins on the evening of April 22.

Today’s poem is a Passover poem about how God attends the Passover Seder.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Palpably, You are in this room,

A presence just as certain as our own,

Singing with us -- family friend, well-known --

Someone, not just something we assume.

One can know You only intimately.

Vast as You are, You fit into our home.

Every tick of life we're not alone,

Rejoicing in a love we feel and see.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith and Jewish Identity.

April 18: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale

April 19: How Best Can We Remember We Were Slaves

April 20: Part of Being Jewish Is a Choice

April 21: Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder

April 22: Palpably, You Are in This Room

Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder

April 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith and Jewish identity, in honor of Passover, which begins on the evening of April 22.

Today’s poem is a Passover poem about a Jew who wants to keep in contact with the past but no longer shares its faith.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Perhaps your only ritual is the Seder,

All that’s left of what was once a Jew.

Suppose you’ve found the rest’s no longer you,

Still working on a self that surfaced later.

Oh, yes, this one last bit of times gone by,

Vividly alive in prayer and song,

Endures, although the past for which you long

Remains rooted in a faith you now deny.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/perha8.html. For more Passover poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith and Jewish Identity.

April 18: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale

April 19: How Best Can We Remember We Were Slaves

April 20: Part of Being Jewish Is a Choice

April 21: Perhaps Your Only Ritual Is the Seder

Part of Being Jewish Is a Choice

April 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith and Jewish identity, in honor of Passover, which begins on the evening of April 22.

Today’s poem is a Passover poem about how the holiday helped preserve Jewish identity through centuries of exile.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Part of being Jewish is a choice

As one becomes an act of preservation.

Seders start the stream of admonition,

Stories meant to bind one to the past.

On words alone the exiles had to last,

Verses reified by repetition,

Each an heirloom of a generation

Reared to give those ancient words a voice.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith and Jewish Identity.

April 18: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale

April 19: How Best Can We Remember We Were Slaves

April 20: Part of Being Jewish Is a Choice

How Best Can We Remember We Were Slaves

April 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith and Jewish identity, in honor of Passover, which begins on the evening of April 23.

Today’s poem is a Passover poem about the need for liberation from slavery in the present as well as in the past.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How best can we remember we were slaves?
After all, it's been three thousand years.
Perhaps in time the ceremony paves
Pleasingly the terrace of our tears.
Yet it happened once, this morning myth,
Past the open window of the wound,
And again, and yet again, the truth
Still streaming from the altars of the doomed.
So must we be the slaves of our own time,
Our holocaust the holocaust of all,
Victorious only when the ancient crime
Exists alone as ritual and rhyme,
Remnants of a myth beyond recall.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith and Jewish identity.
April 18: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe the Tale
April 19: How Best Can We Remember We WereSlaves

Praised Be Those Who Don't Believe the Tale

April 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith and Jewish identity, in honor of Passover, which begins on the evening of April 23.

Passover commemorates the exodus from Egypt, especially when the angel of God passed over the houses of the Jews when inflicting the final plague upon the Egyptians, the slaying of the first born. It is celebrated through a ritual dinner, the Seder, which includes a retelling of the story of the exodus, prayers, songs, and the consumption of symbolic foods.

Today’s poem is a Passover poem about the beauty of the ritual even for those who don’t believe in it.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Praised be those who don’t believe the tale,

Although they will recite it every year

So as to pass on rather than pass over

Symbols that retain their ancient power.

Old myths survive because they don’t go stale,

Vivid founding fables long held dear,

Epics binding epochs time would sever,

Restoring richness to each passing hour.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/prais3.html. For more Passover poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith and Jewish identity.

April 18: Praised Be Those Who Don’t Believe theTale

One Hundred

April 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is aging: the changes in perspective, health, wisdom, and satisfaction.

Today’s poem is a number poem for a 100 year old.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

One hundred is a milestone indeed!

Now one knows at least one has lived long.

Even so, life finds much good to read,

Having loved good reading all along.

Underneath the years one still has wonder,

Naked as it was when it was born,

Delighted to be blessed a little longer,

Reluctant to request much of the dawn.

Each year of life's a gift of grace untold.

Do, then, find pleasure rich in growing old.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/100.html. For more number poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Aging.

April 11: Seventy-Four

April 12: Adages of Age

April 13: Sixty-Five

April 14: Melissa

April 15: Seventy-Two

April 16: How Will I Know Which Way to Go

April 17: One Hundred