Happy, Happy Hanukkah

December 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is a Hanukkah poem comparing the soul to a Hanukkah candle.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy, Happy Hanukkah!

As candles dance with light,

Now watch them on the window sill

Undo a bit of night.

Know that you're a candle, too,

Kindled by a flame

Alight with love, the Holy One,

Ha-Shem, which means, The Name.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ81.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

December 15: How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

December 16: Be Comfortable with Doubt, with Death, with Darkness

December 17: Happy, Happy Hanukkah

Be Comfortable with Doubt, with Death, with Darkness

December 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how love is an eternity within time, even though every flame must burn out.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Be comfortable with doubt, with death, with darkness.

One’s candle will inevitably burn out.

No miracle can make it last forever,

Nor keep two souls eternally together.

In life there is but one way things turn out.

Embrace it, then, in all its senseless starkness.

Sing of life in all its poignant starkness,

Equally of light and gentle darkness,

The timeless end, however time turns out,

Here, where every holy lamp burns out.

Each finds greater happiness together.

Love is a redaction of forever.

In loving one is for a time forever,

Zen-like in one’s sense of senseless starkness,

Aware that one is one, and that together

Both are singly subject to the darkness,

Embracing still a soul that will burn out,

Touched by love, however things turn out,

Having loved, however things turn out.

Given, one will not exist forever

And like a Hanukkah candle will burn out,

Burning beautifully against life’s starkness,

Radiant dancer lighting up the darkness.

In love and longing, dancers dance together,

Each flame more bright and beautiful together,

Loving life however it turns out,

A miracle of light upon the darkness.

Nor need one need more time to taste forever,

Despite the naked truth in all its starkness,

Knowing that in time all flames burn out,

Eventually that even stars burn out.

Now is forever. The only forever. Together

Now is together forever. Life ends in starkness,

And yet one’s time is timeless, it turns out.

Eternity is now. One lives forever,

Light infinite upon a sea of darkness,

Lighting darkness still. Though lights turn out,

Each was still is. Forever is. Together

Now burning out of love amid life’s starkness.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

December 15: How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

December 16: Be Comfortable with Doubt, with Death, with Darkness

How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

December 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how the Hanukkah lights are sustained by being rekindled every year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How beautiful the Hanukkah lights,

All aglow on winter nights!

Nine candles dancing, dancing down

Until no trace of flame is found.

Knowing they will be again

Kindled to remember when

A miracle such fire sustained

Helps keep alive the inner flame.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/howbe5.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

December 15: How Beautiful the Hanukkah Lights

Being in Eternity and Time

December 14, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began on December 12.

Today’s poem is about how one can through the imagination know eternity within time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Being in eternity and time,

One knows both, as though a piece of music

Not only was itself, but every piece

Not heard, not even written, as though the moment

Included all that ever was, could ever be,

Even what one never could imagine.

Sing of the gift that brings one to imagine

Eternity within each tick of time,

The daily human miracle that can be

Heard in the intensity of music,

Every ecstasy that fills the moment,

Letting one find glory piece by piece.

In the eternal moment there is peace.

Zero and infinity. Imagine

All creation in a single moment,

Being in the grip of conscious time,

Eternities in thoughts, in words, in music,

That bring one to the finite brink of be,

Here beside the radiance of be.

Each of us can turn within towards peace,

Living in the midst of silent music,

Listening to songs one can imagine.

Even fuel-less flames go out in time.

Nor can forever be but in the moment.

Give thanks for every day, year, hour, moment,

Alive as only one who dies can be.

Be grateful for the unsought gift of time,

Ripening towards wisdom, love, and peace.

In every pulse, one can reimagine

Eternity, as grace, as timeless music.

Live, then, in the ambiance of music,

Alive in both forever and the moment,

Needing, to be joyful, to imagine

Death within the miracle of be,

Knowing that eternal inner peace

Endures beneath the holocaust of time.

Nor does the music vanish with the moment.

Nor can what one imagines well but be

A piece of praise song sung for one’s own time.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/being4.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 14: Being in Eternity and Time

Can One Celebrate a Miracle

December 13, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which began last night, December 12.

Today’s poem is a Chanukah poem about why one might celebrate a miracle one does not believe occurred.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Can one celebrate a miracle,

Having no belief that one occurred?

A row of candles might be beautiful:

Need one recall their reason seems absurd?

Underneath the story lies the meaning

Kindled by the ritual memory,

A tale of faith that one might find redeeming,

However secular one’s faith might be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/canon2.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 13: Can One Celebrate a Miracle

Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins tonight, December 12.

Today’s poem is about the inseparability of darkness and light.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Bless the darkness, bless the light.

Open up your fearful heart.

None can sever soul from breath.

None can sever life from death.

If none can tell the two apart,

Each must bless both bloom and blight.

Sing of beauty, sing of blight,

Ecstasy and dying light!

The miracles that oceans part

Have their blueprints in the heart.

Even at the edge of death,

Life looks for eternal breath.

In every heartbeat, every breath,

Zealous to postpone the blight,

Aware of age, aware of death,

But anxious to prolong the light,

Each sings of sunlight in the heart

To bless with joy a well-played part,

Here to sing and then depart.

Eight days the nation held its breath.

Light eternal lit the heart,

Letting all know death and blight

Endure but briefly, while the light

Needs only faith to conquer death.

Granted faith can conquer death,

And God can seas and oceans part.

But life is darkness filled with light,

Radiant in every breath,

Infinity enduring blight,

Ending with a broken heart.

Life requires a ravenous heart

And every moment feeds on death,

Needing darkness, needing blight,

Dear sweet whole that none can part,

Kindling joy in every breath,

Each aging pulse a pulse of light.

Now love’s lantern lights the heart,

Now death curls around each breath.

And none can blight from blessing part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/bless8.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

Have a Happy Hanukah

December 11, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins on December 13.

Today’s poem is a Hanukkah poem about lighting the Hanukkah lights both without and within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Have a happy Hanukkah

And light the dancing lights!

Now bright Heaven’s harbinger

Undoes the long, cold nights.

Kindle on your windowsill,

Kindle in your heart,

A symbol of a miracle,

Here to light the dark.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/havea2.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah