Weekly Poems from Poems for Free: A Philosophical Friendship Poem and More
MAY POETRY FLOW
May poetry flow
From your moonlit garden,
From your cool, dark fountain,
Untouched by age.
May your spirit read
The book of life
With the same enchantment
As the child within.
DEAR SON, I CANNOT SPEAK
Dear son, I cannot speak, and yet
I have so much to say to you,
Too much for time and will to net.
Life goes with just this last adieu.
I have so much to say to you,
Far more than I can now convey.
Life goes with just this last adieu
To serve as what I want to say.
Far more than I can now convey,
I love you with a love that yearns
To serve as what I want to say,
Ablaze with joy that bleeds and burns.
I love you with a love that yearns
Too much for time and will to net.
Ablaze with joy that bleeds and burns,
Dear son, I cannot speak, and yet . . .
MY LOVER BATHES ME IN HIS PRECIOUS LIGHT
My lover bathes me in his precious light.
I am the Earth to his all-giving sun.
His needs are burned away in serving mine,
Consumed in the production of his love.
In my awe I’m sometimes forced to wonder:
How can such sweet radiance be sustained?
So selfless is the self in need of need,
So much in love with giving others love.
Still, the sun requires no return.
Light and life come humbly from its fire.
And so I worship him as did the ancients,
Grateful for the gift of being near.
WHISKERS
Whiskers will remain a wily wastrel,
Having learned the habits of his heart.
Impulse is for him an inner minstrel,
Singing with the certainty of art.
Kindness cannot cause him to be caring,
Even when exceptionally at ease.
Reveling in love, he finds it wearing;
So saunters off, with no one else to please.
PASTORS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SHEPHERDS
Pastors are supposed to be the shepherds
A willing flock has bid to guide their souls.
So must you be yourself a lamb of courage,
The one most lost amid the moral wreckage
Of Adam’s sin, whose grief must be the fold’s.
Remember we are all but broken potsherds,
Sustained alone by faith in some great whole.
THE LUCK IN LOVE LIES MAINLY AT THE START
The luck in love lies mainly at the start,
Having to do with meeting and attraction.
Indeed, the passion that undoes the heart
Remains, at heart, a chemical reaction.
Thereafter, love is on its own, and must
Each hour, each day, each year renew its glory.
Ellipsis may be suitable for lust;
No love lasts long without a proper story.
The luck in love for us lies far behind:
Here love is knowing, wise, and far from blind.
THANK YOU FOR PREPARING ME FOR BAPTISM
Thank you for preparing me for baptism.
How better do we learn than from the heart?
A soul can best find joy by sharing grace,
Not being whole except by being part,
Knowing well the ways across that chasm!
Your love shines through your acts as through a prism,
Of all God’s gifts, the easiest to trace,
Uniting your sweet labor with His art.
Nicholas Gordon is a poet and the webmaster of the popular poetry site, Poems for Free at http://www.poemsforfree.com. He holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Stanford University. For most of his working life, he taught English at New Jersey City University, in Jersey City, NJ.