Weekly Poems: A 40th Birthday Number Poem and More
Posted: Wednesday, October 14, 2009
by Nicholas Gordon
http://www.poemsforfree.com
FORTY
Forty can't believe that she is forty.
OMG! Already? It can't be!
Recently seems much more recently.
Though centuries ago, when she was thirty,
Years stretched ahead as far as she could see.
LIGHT ELUDES THE LATITUDES OF LONGING
Light eludes the latitudes of longing.
A part of us is always in the darkness,
Ever -- and thus never -- yet to be.
But choose not to surrender our own oneness,
Protecting the sweet sense that we are free.
Some would rather melt into the light,
Consumed by love, certain of their faith,
Yet never, never quite completely home.
Some prefer the precincts of the night,
Haunted by a homeless, helpless wraith
Who yet retains the latitude to roam.
I'VE DREAMED OF LOVING YOU FOR MANY YEARS
I've dreamed of loving you for many years,
Loving you each day and night, each hour,
Loving till you flow into my tears,
And I into the garden where you flower.
Of course I must be me, as you are you,
But just as bushes planted side by side
So intertwine one cannot tell they're two,
We will through love and time be unified.
So have I dreamed, though we have been apart
So long that I of life with you despaired,
Holding wounded hope within my heart
That through these frozen years it might be spared.
The world is a redaction of the dream.
Our greatest pain deep longings shall redeem.
HARBINGERS OF UNIMAGINED HORRORS
Harbingers of unimagined horrors,
Avatars of those who rule the night,
Lurking in the shallows of our shadows
Like fish that lack the lungs to breathe the light;
Omens from an almanac of sorrows
Written on a midnight long ago,
Etched into the mirrors of our marrows,
Ever masks for what we dare not know:
Now revel with us till the cocks thrice crow!
WHEN LIFE BECOMES A SEA OF PAIN
When life becomes a sea of pain
And every moment agony
I must endure again, again,
It is a curse to have to be.
And every moment agony,
And every longing fixed on death;
It is a curse to have to be
And fight by instinct for each breath.
And every longing fixed on death
Even as I must go on
And fight by instinct for each breath,
Sailing thus, though loved, alone.
Even as I must go on,
You watch me helpless from the shore;
Sailing thus, though loved, alone,
I need you with me all the more.
You watch me helpless from the shore
As I endure again, again;
I need you with me all the more
When life becomes a sea of pain.
MARRIAGE IS THE CLOSEST KIND OF FRIENDSHIP
Marriage is the closest kind of friendship.
Years of traffic wear away the lines
Between two souls with similar designs,
Ending more in unity than kinship.
Separate actors must play separate parts:
They must alone be riveted by need.
Far beneath that soil a single seed
Roots itself, tenacious in their hearts.
In love there is a trust beyond the word.
Each finds peace in each, as though the light
Needed the tranquility of night,
Deeper than what silence can be heard.
THANKSGIVING IS A MOMENT TO REMEMBER
Thanksgiving is a moment to remember
How little we can do to move the stars.
All we are and have we must surrender,
Nor is Earth less inscrutable than Mars.
Knowing this, we know the need for friends
Sharing both our pleasures and our pain,
Giving, though it may not serve their ends,
In joy the love that will our love sustain.
Very much like water in a lake,
In sum we serve as mirrors to the sky.
No one alone can heaven's picture take.
Given friends, we know the reason why.
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