Happiness Comes in Many Shapes and Sizes

June 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is fatherhood, in honor of Father’s Day, which falls on June 19.

Today’s poem is a Father’s Day poem for someone who is childless.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness comes in many shapes and sizes.

Anyone can find a proper fit.

Praised be those who take life bit by bit,

Poised to polish setbacks and surprises.

Yet life is always more than one surmises.

Fortune favors those who favor it,

And whether caused by choice, chance, whim, or writ,

Turns out to be a text that one revises.

How might you, childless, celebrate this day,

Enjoying what will never be your own,

Reminded of a loss you might regret

‘Mid families out to pay their homage due?

So may you cherish children on your way,

Delighting in the ones you have on loan,

And do with love and art the things that let

You father what is beautiful and true.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happ73.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fatherhood.

June 13: Children Need a Daddy

June 14: I Have You in My Bones

June 15: Happiness Comes in Many Shapes andSizes

I Have You in My Bones

June 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is fatherhood, in honor of Father’s Day, which falls on June 19.

Today’s poem is a Father’s Day poem from a child who was abandoned by his father.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I have you in my bones, the way I laugh,

The way I shrug, a moodiness that gathers

When I don't get my way. You are half

Of me, and yet I've never met you. It matters,

Oh, yes, it matters. You are in my smile,

The way I whistle when I'm happy, a certain

Skip up the stairs, a jaunty sense of style,

Off-kilter, off-key. I peer around the curtain

Of your abandonment and wonder: What

If you had stayed, had loved me, had loved my mother?

And what does it say of me that you would put

Yourself so first? Is that also me? What other

Ugliness have I from you? Or grace?

They say I am the mirror of your face.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ihavey.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fatherhood.

June 13: Children Need a Daddy

June 14: I Have You in My Bones

Children Need a Daddy

June 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is fatherhood, in honor of Father’s Day, which falls on June 19.

Today’s poem is a Father’s Day poem about what fathers are for.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Children need a Daddy

For many, many things:

Like holding them high off the ground

Where the sunlight sings!

Like being the deep music

That tells them all is right

When they awaken frantic with

The terrors of the night.

Like being the great mountain

That rises in their hearts

And shows them how they might get home

When all else falls apart.

Like giving them the love

That is their sea and air,

So diving deep or soaring high

They'll always find him there.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/child2.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fatherhood.

June 13: Children Need a Daddy

Rights Are Not Equivalent to Freedom

June 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Ramadan, which begins on June 7.

Today’s poem is a Ramadan poem about rights, freedom, and community.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Rights are not equivalent to freedom.

All have claims upon the lives of all.

Make yourself a servant of the kingdom,

Acting in the interests of the whole.

Deeds are sermons preached upon the plain

As each from each has much to lose or gain;

Nor is faith the free choice of one soul.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

June 6: Rapture Comes Most Easily Within

June 7: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World

June 8: Reason Is No Cause for Revelation

June 9: Read the Holy Book as Though Asleep

June 10: Righteousness Remains the Rock of Faith

June 11: How Might One Untie the Knot

June 12: Rights Are Not Equivalent to Freedom

How Might One Untie the Knot

June 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Ramadan, which begins on June 7.

Today’s poem is about how the awareness of God’s love leaves one no alternative to the vicissitudes of faith.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How might one untie the knot

That binds one to God's love?

For love imposes innocence,

And innocence, remorse.

The tenderness that time forgot

No caustic can remove:

The laws of cause and consequence

Are cut off at the source.

Love comes simply as one is,

Condemning one to hope,

Restoring culpability,

Awakening one's pain.

So loved, one cannot be but His,

Though one be moved to grope

Towards some amoral liberty

That seeks the void in vain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/howmi6.html. For more poems about religion, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/religiouspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith.

June 6: Rapture Comes Most Easily Within

June 7: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World

June 8: Reason Is No Cause for Revelation

June 9: Read the Holy Book as Though Asleep

June 10: Righteousness Remains the Rock of Faith

June 11: How Might One Untie the Knot

Righteousness Remains the Rock of Faith

June 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Ramadan, which begins on June 7.

Today’s poem is a Ramadan poem about how good works sustain faith.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Righteousness remains the rock of faith,

As what one does sustains what one believes.

Mere hypocrites might pray, the Prophet saith;

Actions must be words the heart conceives.

Do, then, what acts and rituals are due,

As faith becomes a flame that feeds on you,

No less than as a fire consumes dry leaves.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

June 6: Rapture Comes Most Easily Within

June 7: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World

June 8: Reason Is No Cause for Revelation

June 9: Read the Holy Book as Though Asleep

June 10: Righteousness Remains the Rock of Faith

Read the Holy Book as Though Asleep

June 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Ramadan, which begins on June 7.

Today’s poem is a Ramadan poem about reading the Holy Book not just for its wisdom but also for its beauty.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Read the Holy Book as though asleep,

And in a dream awaken to its beauty,

Making it the music of your moment

And weaving it like gold throughout your day.

Do not journey through it just to reap,

Avid for the kernels of your duty,

Neglecting the thick flowers in your way.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

June 6: Rapture Comes Most Easily Within

June 7: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World

June 8: Reason Is No Cause for Revelation

June 9: Read the Holy Book as Though Asleep