Poem of the Week

Thursday, May 11, 2017

A Mother Casts Her Dreams into the Sea

May 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem about motherhood as a kind of immortality.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A mother casts her dreams into the sea;

We, the words sent bobbing towards the sun,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy.

Because she must conclude her melody

And fall back to the sweet dark hush of One,

A mother casts her dreams into the sea,

Hoping to cross that wild infinity

And on some infant shore again to run,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy

Outside the fiery circle of memory,

The howling surf, the incessant years undone ...

A mother casts her dreams into the sea

And then dissolves into a tapestry,

Her rolling, helpless drift again begun,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy

Afloat once more upon eternity,

Once more the alien fury, never done ...

Again, again, her dreams into the sea,

The eggs of stone, the shards of prophesy!

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

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

May 9: Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

May 10: Motherhood Is a Generic Term

May 11: Maybe Every Moment’s Meant to Be

May 12: A Mother Casts Her Dreams into the Sea

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Maybe Every Moment's Meant to Be

May 11, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem for a woman whose children miscarried.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe every moment’s meant to be.

One chooses in the dark and takes a path

That leads one to the wonder of what is.

How might one see another’s hand in this?

Each choice was a prediction in the past,

Revealing only what one wished to see.

Here and now remains a mystery.

One watches from one’s rock-bound coast the vast

Ocean of experience and bliss,

Deeper than the heart, wind-sculpted, free.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb15.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

May 9: Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

May 10: Motherhood Is a Generic Term

May 11: Maybe Every Moment’s Meant to Be

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Motherhood Is a Generic Term

May 10, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem about the wide reach of the term “motherhood.”

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Motherhood is a generic term,

One that is applied to more than mothers.

The honorific’s something one can earn,

Having loved in ways that nurture others.

Enduring love for children is a song

Requiring only will for one to sing,

Having well-versed voices sing along

Over time, till one’s bright brood takes wing.

Oh, yes, one can also mother birds,

Dogs, cats, horses, love that needs no words.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/moth15.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

May 9: Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

May 10: Motherhood Is a Generic Term

Monday, May 8, 2017

Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

May 9, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem about the extraordinary strength of the emotions of motherhood.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe when one enters the darkened room,

Opening the door in a narrow burst of light,

The child at last blissfully asleep,

Here, now, the furtive kiss upon the cheek,

Exiting slowly, exquisitely quietly, the night

Restored as the door is cracked against the gloom …

Here, now, the freedom, the sense of sheer relief,

One feels the grace of love like an anguished chord,

Oceanic, overwhelming, like grief

Doubled into joy, too real for words.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb14.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

May 9: Maybe When One Enters the Darkened Room

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Maybe There's a Reason for It All

May 8, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day, which falls on May 14.

Today’s poem is a Mother’s Day poem about the beautiful music of love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe there's a reason for it all.

Or maybe not. There doesn't have to be.

The music is enough, a melody

Heard coming from behind the Western Wall,

Echo of enduring ecstasy,

Remnant of a love beyond recall,

So beautiful one must sing harmony.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb13.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Motherhood

May 8: Maybe There’s a Reason for It All

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Proverbs on Acceptance

May 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is acceptance.

Today’s poem is a set of ten proverbs on acceptance.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

PROVERBS ON ACCEPTANCE

1. Acceptance is like a calm sea upon which the will can sail smoothly, whereas upon a rebellious sea the will can barely make headway against the wind.

2. One can accept evil, even one’s own evil, as inseparable from life without surrendering to it, simultaneously embracing those who are evil and vigorously opposing them.

3. Acceptance of desire – that is, feeling it vividly with neither guilt nor shame – paradoxically frees one from it, so that one need no longer surrender to it or struggle against it, but can simply act according to reason and love.

4. Acceptance of oneself is like becoming one’s own parent, loving oneself unconditionally while attempting to guide one’s way.

5. One can either dance across a rock-strewn field or curse the rocks as one stumbles and weaves. To the rocks it is all the same.

6. One of the least satisfactory things one can do is wish one were doing something else.

7. One ought not worry about getting what one wants, but rather about wanting what one gets.

8. The secret of happiness is simple – if one is alive and not in pain, one is happy. But only if one knows it.

9. The quality of one’s life is determined more by attitude than by altitude.

10. Acceptance is not acquiescence. What is surrendered is not the will but the heart.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/provac.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Acceptance

May 1: For Those Who Love, Things Tend to Matter More

May 2: Fortune Is like Music Minus One

May 3: Future Selves Are Built on Past Mistakes