Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

June 18, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is graduation, in honor of the many elementary, middle-school, and high-school graduations taking place this month.

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

A congratulatory graduation poem from faculty to students:

Each of us must climb our separate mountain

To reach at last our own extended view.

We can be no more than what we are,

Yet that is quite enough for us to do.

The world is far too great for comprehension,

And so we only know what we can know.

But given the abilities we're given,

That's still a long and weary way to go.

Yet on the way, how beautiful the moments!

How good it feels to have some skill or art!

How wonderful to pause in awestruck wonder

At what must fill the unsuspecting heart!

And so we're proud of each of you today

For all you've learned, and all you've tried to learn.

Knowledge brings the deepest satisfaction,

Not least because it's something that you earn.

© 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/eachof.html. For more graduation poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/graduationpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Graduation

6/18: Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

How Much I Love You I Can't Say

June 17, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated today, June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem full of gratitude:

How much I love you I can't say:

It's more than words can hold.

You're all at once my rich, red clay,

My potter and my mold.

Yours the words that shaped my voice,

The spirit within mine.

Yours the will that shaped my choice,

My fortune, and my sign.

How lucky I was to have had you

At the core of me!

Wise and good, you always knew

Just what I could be.

And so I came to be someone

Whom I could be proud of.

For this I give my swollen sum

Of gratitude and love.

© 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/howmuc.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

6/15: Before I Was Myself, You Made Me, Me

6/16: How Lucky to Have Had So Good a Father!

6/17: How Much I Love You I Can’t Say

How Lucky to Have Had So Good a Father

June 16, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which will be celebrated tomorrow, June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem for a deceased father:

How lucky to have had so good a father!

On us his warm, unstinting sun long shone.

We were, of his hardworking life, the center,

Loved for the pure joy of love alone.

Uncanny are the requisites of pleasure,

Coming as they do within the will.

Knowing well where lay his greatest treasure,

Years on years of love he labored still.

© 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/howluc.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

6/15: Before I Was Myself, You Made Me, Me

6/16: How Lucky to Have Had So Good a Father!

Before I Was Myself You Made Me, Me

June 15, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

An appreciative Father’s Day poem about adjusting the mixture of discipline and freedom:

Before I was myself you made me, me

With love and patience, discipline and tears,

Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Allowing me to sail upon my sea,

Though well within the headlands of your fears.

Before I was myself you made me, me

With dreams enough of what I was to be

And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,

Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Relinquishing your powers gradually

To let me shape myself among my peers.

Before I was myself you made me, me,

And being good and wise, you gracefully

As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears

Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.

For love inspires learning naturally:

The mind assents to what the heart reveres.

And so it was through love you made me, me

By slowly stepping back to set me free.

© 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/befor2.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

6/15: Before I Was Myself, You Made Me, Me

A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

June 14, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

An appreciative Father’s Day poem to a stepfather:

A father and a dad are not the same:

One can be a dad and not a father,

Or one can be a father and not bother

To earn through love the more endearing name.

Some find fatherhood a bit too tame,

Leaving all the details to the mother,

Or dumping the sweet burden on another

Man with just a passing twinge of shame.

You have been our dad so many years

That you've become the landscape that is home,

The mountain that we look to from afar.

No matter where we go we're not alone,

For you remain within to still our fears

And be the word that tells us where we are.

© 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/afath.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

6/14: A Father and a Dad Are Not the Same

Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

June 13, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem about the need for faith in raising children:

Fathers must have faith in what they do,

As long as what they do proceeds from love.

The thousand thousand gifts of self accrue,

Held for years in bonds they know not of.

Even discipline, if not in anger,

Reasonable, not stubborn, patient, wise,

‘Mid rebellions resolute for order,

Succeeds at last in children’s later lives.

Deeds are bricks with which one builds a home,

A dwelling of the heart, though kids may roam,

Yielding more love than one might surmise.

© 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/fath11.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

6/13: Fathers Must Have Faith in What They Do

Hope Turns Slowly into Realization

June 12, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Father’s Day, which is celebrated on June 17^th.

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

A Father’s Day poem about how to handle parental expectations:

Hope turns slowly into realization

As children slowly grow into themselves.

Perhaps some remnant fantasy rebels.

Perhaps one should revise one’s expectation.

Yet children owe one’s dreams no explanation,

For one must heed the tale that fortune tells

And greet the prodigal with joyful bells

That render the sweet song of the relation.

Have no illusion: Love is like a tide

Ebbing and flowing through the channeled heart,

Returning, turning as some smiling moon

‘Mid bits of shattered glory makes its way.

So must one with unremitting pride,

Destined for a quintessential part,

Attempt to harmonize that complex tune,

Yielding, shaping, listening to it play.

© 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/hopetu.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Father’s Day

6/11: Fear Not, for Love Is All Around You

6/12: Hope Turns Slowly into Realization