Weekly Poetry from Poems for Free: An Easter Poem and More
Posted: Wednesday, April 20, 2011
by Nicholas Gordon
http://www.poemsforfree.com
ENDURING DOES NOT LEAD TO HAPPINESS
Enduring does not lead to happiness.
A person ought not suffer out of duty.
Some choose to sacrifice under duress,
Taking as cruel chance what could be beauty.
Each ought to give for love, as did the Lord,
Reckoning the grace as the reward.
WE'VE JUST BEEN FRIENDS, AND NOW YOU'RE GOING
We've just been friends, and now you're going
Far away for many years.
But please don't leave me without knowing
How I feel as your time nears.
I know you're older, more mature,
And far beyond me in some ways.
But there's between us something pure
That's given me these magic days.
I thank you for the loveliness
That your sweet friendship's brought to me.
Think of this poem as a caress
That says, "I love you" gracefully.
I WISH THIS POEM WERE PIXIE DUST
I wish this poem were pixie dust
To throw into your eyes
And make you see the loveliness
Beneath my sad disguise.
And I would take you in my arms
And weave a magic spell
That I could utter anytime
To make you love me well.
But alas my simple words
Are like summer rain
That drums on hills and fields and hearts,
Then vanishes again.
And though my love might make you bloom,
You turn with fragile grace
To gaze in aching loneliness
At someone else's face.
We lust for what we cannot have,
A long, unbroken chain
Of lovers who remain unloved
And loved who love in vain.
While I'm near mad with wanting you
As trees must have the sun,
You cannot help but find a love
Who loves another one.
ARYANNA
Aryanna died when she was born,
Reminding us how briefly we are here.
Years, like minutes, cannot last for long;
A note is no less precious than a song,
Nor for her early death was she less dear.
Now what we can do for her is mourn,
As she is salient only to our tears.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Thirty-eight is in the prime of life:
Healthy, strong, resilient, self-assured;
Immersed in hours, needs, desires, things;
Reveling in what the moment brings;
Tender, patient, tough, to toil inured;
Yoked to sunshine with his long-loved wife.
Even as his heart is well secured,
In love he finds his happiness has wings.
Grace unfailing cradles him in flight.
High among the barren peaks he sings
The lowland songs of labor and delight.
HEAVEN OR HELL EQUALLY COULD BE
Heaven or hell equally could be
A marriage without end; the difference,
Perhaps, being sacrifice or self,
Plight or place, the fated or the free.
Yet loving well is not a mystery:
All of life is joy once one consents,
Nor can one rectify what one resents,
Nor love what one forsakes for fantasy.
If only one could tell oneself the truth,
Vested in a love consumed by years,
Each naked word would shimmer with desire,
Radiant with hunger long appeased.
So could one reap the ravages of youth,
Adrift upon a twilight shorn of fear,
Recumbent in the glow of early fire,
Yearning for the fate that one had seized.
GRANT US ALL THE PEACE OF UNDERSTANDING
Grant us all the peace of understanding
Why it is that anything is here.
Happiness or horror notwithstanding,
The point of the whole thing is far from clear.
If you are perfect, why this botched creation,
Replete with hunger, torture, lust, and greed?
Why suffer on the cross for our salvation?
I understand the end, but not the need.
A perfect being needs no son, no heaven,
No purposes, no places, priests, or prayers,
No stars or sepulchers, no souls, not even
One dead fool, about whom someone cares.
Could it be perfection could not be
Without my love for you, and yours for me?
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