Weekly Poems from Poems for Free: A Name Poem for Maria and More
MARIA
Maria is a woman of the world:
As fluent in kultura as in tongues;
Reigning with a smile, poised and pearled;
Inside, duty; outside, charm unfurled;
A diplomat at ease on many rungs.
TINA SAYS SHE'S OK
Tina says she's OK,
Tina says she's fine.
Tina smiles sweetly,
Standing on the line.
There's an awful lot to Tina,
Much of it inside:
Churning, burning, turning, learning,
Lovely, dark, untried.
LOVE ME IN THE CIRCLE OF YOUR EVENING
Love me in the circle of your evening,
And in the morning quiet of your dreams.
Love me underneath ambitious schemes,
And when they slow and time can use some seasoning.
I do not need your highways and your streets
As long as I can be there when you're home.
We both have miles of paradise to roam:
Let me be where your brave heart retreats.
And I will love you in the times of tears,
Of hope and laughter, pain and ecstasy,
And all the days of haunted thoughts, when we
Can share the undertow of vanished years.
JESSE AND TIFFANY MARRIED QUITE YOUNG
Jesse and Tiffany married quite young,
Each to the other a passionate friend.
Some say such early love doesn't last long;
Some say such faith will win out in the end.
Early or late, love is ever the same:
A joy in the joy of another; an art
Naive yet mature; and a will to sustain,
Despite one's own demons, the dreams of the heart.
To Jesse and Tiffany, then, for a life
In which love is the song that's most frequently heard,
For the music that plays in a husband and wife
Finds no beauty without the sweet sound of one word.
All of your pleasure and all of your pain
Now are joined in a moment that won't come again
Yet will sing through your years like a soft summer wind.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Thirty-eight is more than just a number,
Having joined through love the flow of flesh,
Inheriting the future, choosing life,
Rejoicing in the wisdom of a wife,
The seed of which the person is the creche,
Yielding what the years cannot encumber.
Even as the tree is not the lumber,
Infinity awaits your will, as such,
Graced to be the cradle of a grief
Howling through the tapestries of touch,
The passion wrapped in swaddling clothes of slumber.
TO ELLEN, LADY OF SUCH GRACE
To Ellen, lady of such grace
As well might grace a husband's life;
Whose gentle Quattrocento face
Conveys the wisdom of the wife.
As well might grace a husband's life,
She has a way with words, whose wit
Conveys the wisdom of the wife
Obliquely, bit by subtle bit.
She has a way with words, whose wit
Works patiently, as dawn will come
Obliquely, bit by subtle bit,
Till even fools can see the sun.
Works patiently, as dawn will come
To bring the dark sky's dreams to light,
Till even fools can see the sun
Restore the joys long lost to night.
To bring the dark sky's dreams to light,
Whose gentle Quattrocento face
Restores the joys long lost to night?
To Ellen: lady of such grace!
THANK YOU FOR THE THINGS YOU'VE DONE FOR ME
Thank you for the things you've done for me.
Happiness walks slowly, with a cane.
Although inside I'm dancing to the moon,
Nearby many obstacles remain.
Kind help like yours those thorny thickets prune.
You are my willing ear, the peaceful sea
On which I sail my thoughts, the quiet tune
Underneath my laughter and my pain.
About the Author:
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.