Weekly Poems from Poems for Free: A Feminist Poem and More
Posted: Wednesday, April 28, 2010
by Nicholas Gordon
http://www.poemsforfree.com
TO THE HEROINES STILL NOT WELL KNOWN
To the heroines still not well known,
Those who would be famous were they men,
And those whose sunlight never fully shone,
Veiled for life behind men's fear of sin:
Now it's time your tales were well told,
Well past time you got your bit of glory!
We need to rescue you so that the old
Slant no longer skews our common story.
Is never past, that stories steer one's choices,
Will want to look for heroines in the vast
Store of women's lives and hear their voices.
THERE IS NO FUTURE GOOD ENOUGH
There is no future good enough
For what we hope to be,
Nor world with windows wide enough
For what we hope to see.
Yet when we turn to compromise
The dreams with which we wake,
We'll glimpse behind a memory
Which we cannot forsake.
How beautiful this time of youth
That is so quickly gone!
We came to learn together, and
In moments we are done.
How long we will remember this
Brief time when life would wait
Upon the true perception that
Comes always far too late.
THERE IS NO TREASURE GREATER THAN YOUR LOVE
There is no treasure greater than your love,
However rich or bountiful your life.
It is the spring that wells up in your garden,
Replenishing the mother and the wife;
The joy that makes a pleasure of your burden,
Yielding happiness that time will prove.
Nor is love proof against travail and strife.
Instead, it is but tears with yearning laden,
Nile through the desert, green and brazen,
Edged with life, where all things near might bloom.
I AM THE HAPPIEST I'VE EVER BEEN
I am the happiest I've ever been.
My loneliness will be forever gone.
When you're away, my empty feelings spin,
But after this, I'll always be at home.
You're the only person in the world
From whom I cannot stand to be apart.
But now in your devotion I'll be curled,
Just as you'll take shelter in my heart.
And so we two create a separate thing
In which we dwell mystically as one.
Neither you nor I will solo sing
Once this strange new harmony's begun.
How sweet to join with you in this new life,
Not only as myself, but as your wife.
HOW MIGHT ONE BE A MOTHER WITHOUT CHILDREN
How might one be a mother without children,
As though the contract weren't writ in blood?
Perhaps one's fate is more received than given,
Placed where one might seize it, if one would.
Yet what is cannot be undone.
Make of it the music of your dance,
Organ raptures ripped from ancient stone,
Transforming life to beauty from blind chance.
How might one be a mother in one's heart,
Embodying within the act the dream?
Reality is part terrain, part art,
'Twixt earth and will more lithe than it might seem.
So might the childless their children bear,
Delighting in a discourse no less rare,
As one makes of one's fate a gift that may
Yield grace attainable no other way.
JUST AS LOVE IN LIFE CAN LESSEN PAIN
Just as love in life can lessen pain,
Even more it soothes the pain of death.
For you our love must come and go like rain;
For me it is my heart, my word, my breath.
WE'LL GO ON, AFTER YOU
We'll go on, after you,
Without you we'll go on,
Though something beautiful inside
Us all has turned to stone.
We'll go on, after you,
Without you through the years
Of pain and raw bewilderment
And brutal, angry tears.
We'll go on, after you,
Without you we will heal,
Though love may labor in the heart
And joy the loss conceal.
We'll go on, after you,
Without you we will grow
Together as a family
That you will never know.
We'll go on, after you,
Without you life goes on,
But neither hope nor happiness
Undoes what you have done.
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