The Wind the River Roils Well

September 23, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem in which the wind is a symbol of inexorable fate:

The wind the river roils well
And rocks like shells the boats offshore.
Reeds and cattails thrash and turn
As willows loose their streaming hair.

Soon the storm shall strip them bare
And wash downstream the whiplike ferns.
The river past its banks shall pour
And misery reduce to hell.

So do we all await the power
That rises with the rising wind.
The air electric sings of woe,
And darkness like a dirge descends.

Well do we know our fate depends
On more than we will ever know.
Nor will nor prayer that fate rescinds
Though grace attends each anxious hour.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thewin.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fate
September 21: Maybe There Is Solace in the Sunshine
September 22: Forty-Five Walks Along the Shore
September 23: The Wind the River Roils Well

Forty-Five Walks Along the Shore

September 22, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about the nostalgic beauty of looking back at what fate and choice have wrought:

Forty-five walks along the shore
On which the years of fate and choice have thrown him,
Relishing the beauty they have shown him
Though looking out to sea for something more.
Yet he knows that life has much in store.

Feeling sings nostalgically within.
Infinity bursts weeping out of time.
Vivid memories come over him,
Each a fragment of some lost design.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/45c.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fate
September 21: Maybe There Is Solace in the Sunshine
September 22: Forty-Five Walks Along the Shore

Maybe There Is Solace in the Sunshine

September 21, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A Mother’s Day poem for a woman whose fate it is to be childless:

Maybe there is solace in the sunshine
On the grass beneath the windows of your will.
The love's no less, not lost, although no child
Holds on to you. But elsewhere fate has smiled,
Embracing you with love that needs you still.
Remember that one's woe can turn to wine
Sipped beside a wide, white windowsill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb20.html. For more Mother’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mothersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fate
September 21: Maybe There Is Solace in the Sunshine

What a Life the Artist Lives Within

September 20, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about the artist’s innocence:

What a life the artist lives within!
Eden's innocence not left behind!
Ecstasy is everyday, and love
Is just one's ordinary state of mind.

Without, life still exacts its toll of pain.
Hunger is the engine of the will.
One commutes between despair and hope,
Even in the best times fearing ill.

Within, one dances to one's own sweet tune,
Elated with the beauty of one's art,
Walking in the gloom of midnight rain,
Singing in the sunshine of the heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/whatal.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever
September 18: Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning
September 19: Evil Has No Easy Explanation
September 20: What a Life the Artist Lives Within

Evil Has No Easy Explanation

September 19, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem to a child about the guilt that innocent children feel when they are abused:

Evil has no easy explanation.
Everyone is evil and is good.
Sometimes we watch ourselves do something evil
Frozen in a scream that's never Heard.

We cannot stop ourselves, so we go on,
Knowing somewhere else the horror plays
And plays and plays until we are forgiven,
Healed by someone's gift of unearned love.

When someone has been tortured as a child,
Evil, like a mad dog, crouches near.
One buries it deep in a vaulted, lead-lined chamber,
But zombie-like it stalks the world within.

It's strange that darkened children need forgiveness
For evil that they suffer, innocent.
But guilt's the trademark of humiliation,
Burned into the flesh of memory.

Love washes over evil like an ocean,
Sweeping over seething, fisted anger,
Drowning it in cold, unquiet depths,
Leaving you weak and weeping on the strand.

You wouldn't be yourself without the pain
That twists inside like penitential dancers,
Making you the stage of some strange beauty,
Like no one else, the host of our redemption.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/evil.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever
September 18: Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning
September 19: Evil Has No Easy Explanation

Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning

September 18, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about how someone 58 years old can regain her childhood excitement and innocence:

Fifty-eight still finds delight in learning.
Implicit in her passion is her love
For being and devotion to its treasures,
The things that in one's life most lasting prove
Yet never cease to fill the heart with Yearning.

Ever in her eyes the lamp is burning,
Innocence regained at one remove,
Granted those who pioneer their pleasures,
Habitués of lands they know not of,
Travelers to morning, turning, turning . . .

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/58c.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever
September 18: Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning

I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever

September 17, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about the need for innocence to love:

I loved you, but I could not wait forever.
I made my choice, but you would not make yours.
In some delays, a year's as good as never,
As what is lost no change of heart restores.
I love you still, but cannot think of you
Without the bitter longing of regret.
This, too, will pass, I know, and time renew
The innocence one needs to love, and yet ...
You were my once, that never comes again,
A happiness untouched by any past.
Whatever love comes next comes with the stain
Of knowing well this love might well not last.
Goodbye, my love! I hope someday you'll be
Ripe for the love you could have had from me.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ilove7.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever