The Bells Ring Not for Just These Two

July 1, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A wedding poem about how wedding bells ring for everyone:

The bells ring not for just these two

Who will be joined in love today.

They also ring for me and you.

And not just for the families who

Now celebrate, as well they may.

The bells ring not for just these, too.

And not just those who know or knew

These families well, who came their way.

They also ring for me and you.

And not just those who came to view

The bride, the groom, the whole array.

The bells ring not for just these, too.

And not just those whose love is true,

Or those who would their doubts allay.

They also ring for me and you.

For all are joined in love, and do

Rejoice to hear the sweet bells play!

The bells ring not for just these two.

They also ring for me and you.

© 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/thebel.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

6/29: A Set of Wedding Vows

6/30: I Do Not See You Often with My Eyes

7/1: The Bells Ring Not for Just These Two

I Do Not See You Often with My Eyes

June 30, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A wedding poem from a friend from far away:

I do not see you often with my eyes,

But often you are with me in my heart.

We rarely speak, but there are deeper ties

That keep us close while we must be apart.

Friendships don't depend on sights and sounds,

But on the mysteries of need and grace.

You're with me always, unrestrained by bounds,

In some sweet field more permanent than place.

And so your marriage is a widespread glory,

Shining on a world of more than two.

All the characters in your life story

Share the happiness that's come to you.

No love but must with all love intertwine:

The joy between you two is also mine.

© 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/idono4.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

6/29: A Set of Wedding Vows

6/30: I Do Not See You Often with My Eyes

Wedding Vows2

June 29, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A set of wedding vows:

BRIDE: I vow to love you all my life,

In sickness and in health,

And share your journey through this world

In either want or wealth.

I vow to give myself to you,

To trust you with my life,

To be your source of happiness

As lover and as wife.

GROOM: I vow to give you all my love,

To be your lasting friend,

To care for you and comfort you

Till time and trouble end.

I vow to share your happiness

And sorrow, joy and tears,

And be for you the one true thing

That lasts through all your years.

BOTH: These vows we make not knowing what

Good times or ill may come,

But knowing well what we both want:

A joyful, loving home.

These vows we make of our free will

Before you all, that we

Might know the grace that comes to those

Who would long loving be.

© 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/wedvo2.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

6/29: A Set of Wedding Vows

Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

June 28, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A wedding poem about the rewards and complications of gifts of love:

Gifts are not so simply for the taking.

A gift of love comes freighted with a soul.

Blessed are those who take the offer whole,

Rewarded with a life well worth embracing.

Intimacy's a gift requiring reshaping

Each to play a symbiotic role,

Life exchanging, changing lead to gold,

A mystic one of two now in the making.

Now one knows the other is for certain,

Dependent without fears, without regrets;

Knows that someone sees one as a gift;

Embraces the wizard hid behind the curtain;

Needs to be needed, for what one gives one gets;

Needs to need, for needless one might drift

Alone as passion rises and then sets.

© 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/giftsa.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

6/28: Gifts Are Not So Simply for the Taking

I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

June 27, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A wedding poem about freely choosing to constrain oneself through marriage:

I never thought I ever would get married.

I wanted no restraint upon my will.

But like the wind I wanted to be carried

Wherever wish might take me, yearning still.

And then I fell in love with you, and found

A rock upon which I might build a home,

A place both for and to which I was bound,

So bountiful I had no need to roam.

Freedom cannot be except by choosing,

And choice, if choice it be, of need constrains.

And joy, once had, becomes, for fear of losing,

A horse one rides with firm grip on the reins.

Thus my choice to love you as your wife

Is freely made, yet made for all my life.

© 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/ineve5.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

6/27: I Never Thought I Ever Would Get Married

We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

June 26, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A wedding poem for a couple who met through email:

We met as merely words upon a screen,

Disembodied souls who found a mate

Through mind alone, and unsuspected yearning.

We fell in love the best way, sight unseen,

Pure hunger neither feast nor flesh could sate,

Two hidden flames fair fed by phrases burning.

Most find their way by sight into the heart,

Loving first what must most quickly change

And only then what will the years endure.

We did the opposite, though not by art,

Taking steps that we did not arrange

Along a path both passionate and sure.

© 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/wemet3.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

6/26: We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen

A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign

June 25, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A wedding poem that contains a wedding vow:

A vow is both a promise and a sign

That I am sure enough that this is true

To say it publicly, not just to you,

But to all those whose lives we here combine.

And so I vow to love you all my life,

To give you joy, for that is joy to me,

To be for you what I would have you be:

Each a home for each as man and wife.

I vow to give myself to that one self

Engendered by our mystical embrace,

And to nurture it through love and will.

For only thus we cross the inner gulf

That lies between our consciousness and grace,

Blessed by love, that makes good of all ill.

© 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/avowis.html. For more wedding poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Weddings

6/25: A Vow Is Both a Promise and a Sign