Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon
Be comfortable with doubt, with death, with darkness.
One's candle will inevitably burn out.
No miracle can make it last forever,
Nor keep two souls eternally together.
In life there is but one way things turn out.
Embrace it, then, in all its senseless starkness.
Sing of life in all its poignant starkness,
Equally of light and gentle darkness,
The timeless end, however time turns out,
Here, where every holy lamp burns out.
Each finds greater happiness together.
Love is a redaction of forever.
In loving one is for a time forever,
Zen-like in one's sense of senseless starkness,
Aware that one is one, and that together
Both are singly subject to the darkness,
Embracing still a soul that will burn out,
Touched by love, however things turn out,
Having loved, however things turn out.
Given, one will not exist forever
And like a Hanukkah candle will burn out,
Burning beautifully against life's starkness,
Radiant dancer lighting up the darkness.
In love and longing, dancers dance together,
Each flame more bright and beautiful together,
Loving life however it turns out,
A miracle of light upon the darkness.
Nor need one need more time to taste forever,
Despite the naked truth in all its starkness,
Knowing that in time all flames burn out,
Eventually that even stars burn out.
Now is forever. The only forever. Together
Now is together forever. Life ends in starkness,
And yet one's time is timeless, it turns out.
Eternity is now. One lives forever,
Light infinite upon a sea of darkness,
Lighting darkness still. Though lights turn out,
Each was still is. Forever is. Together
Now burning out of love amid life's starkness.
Blessed are those who can embrace the darkness,
Opening the way to loving light.
No DNA can fail to fear its death,
Nor asthmatic fail to fight for breath,
Instinctively in terror of the night.
Even so, we know life can't be endless.
Some would like their being to be endless,
Each day, each hour, each moment free of darkness,
The fear of it, the thought of coming night
Hidden 'neath the holiness of light,
Ever wishing for eternal breath,
Less alive since less alive to death.
In faith one finds an antidote to death,
Zealously believing in an endless
Afterlife, a being beyond breath
Breaking like a dawn upon the darkness,
Each soul reborn into eternal light,
Timeless in a garden shorn of night,
Happiness forever free of night.
Each moment is a moment because death
Lets one limn the ecstasy of light,
Lets one grasp one's joy because not endless,
Every moment bearing one towards darkness,
Now each more dear for one's short lease on breath.
Grace can be granted in a single breath
As one finds Eden on the edge of night,
Blessed by both the light and coming darkness,
Rejoicing in the gift of life and death.
Infinity is instant and yet endless.
Each consciousness is blind yet full of light.
Let each moment be eternal light
As all that is, is compassed in each breath.
Nor can one be but one is all and endless,
Despite the doleful destiny of night.
Knowing this, one need not turn from death,
Embracing it, for life is lit by darkness.
No God need turn that darkness into light,
Nor miracle decree the death of night,
As every breath sustains a grace that's endless.
Blessings are precisely everyday.
One cannot count them - life's too short for that.
Nor can one always see life as a gift,
Nor heal with gratitude the painful rift
Inherent in a death that birth begat.
Each on her own must griefs with blessings weigh.
Light lights with happiness the darkest way.
It sings with joy and gladness every day,
Light that somehow darkness once begat --
It sprang from nothingness, imagine that!
There is between the light and dark no rift.
Here is all - all equally a gift.
Grief, like joy and gladness, is a gift,
A part of life one can't remove and weigh
By itself, as though there were a rift
Rough-hewn between the cliffs of night and day,
In between the good and evil that
Eternally divide what light begat.
Look, though, look at what the light begat!
Knowing music, an undivided gift
Embracing joy and sorrow, a beauty that
Needs both to wring one's heart out on its way.
Night melts in glory to and from the day,
A modulation rather than a rift.
So it is with sun and shadow: No rift
Exists between the two that light begat,
The night no less a child of light than day,
Half of one rich, multi-layered gift,
& of the joy with sorrow one must weigh.
Earth spins through light and shadow, an image that --
Lending itself to metaphor -- that
Is of mere rotation, not of rift.
Zen-like, we know there are no parts to weigh,
As grief and sorrow are by love begat.
Eight days the oil lasted, each a gift
Lighting up the heart both night and day.
Let ordinary days be just like that,
Each equally a gift. There is no rift --
No lesser God begat the everyday.
Break upon the cold, white sands of darkness!
O oceans, come and break, and break again!
Need, desire, hope, and anger break!
None but God can light from darkness make.
Immensities, come break, come break within!
Each heart must at its heart find emptiness.
Sing, then, as you rise towards emptiness.
Each wave must break, must break upon the darkness,
Then gather itself back to swell within,
Heave up against the sand, and break again.
All rise and fall from nothing, nothing make,
Nor render aught but beauty as they break.
Do not dread the shore on which you break.
Eight days the light burned, fueled by emptiness,
Light that only miracles can make
In you, as God has fashioned it from darkness,
Zero - not just once, again, again,
As consciousness comes forth to reign within.
Break, then, with no sorrow! Break within!
Elevate your longing and then break!
Take in the undertow and break again,
Having filled your heart with emptiness.
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Granted that we all are bound for darkness--
All we are and do, and all we make.
Be humble, then, in all you do and make,
Rising like a wave to break within,
Immensity that breaks upon the darkness,
Easing back again to rise and break,
Life so full of life, then emptiness,
Knowing that the wave will break again.
Embrace the light, embrace the dark, again
Needing, knowing, wanting, longing. Make
No protest as you rise towards emptiness,
A wave that sings to harmonies within.
Even as we know that we must break
Like waves upon the cold, white sands of darkness,
Longing fills the emptiness within,
Each, each time again prepared to make
No imprint as we break upon the darkness.
Being in eternity and time,
One knows both, as though a piece of music
Not only was itself, but every piece
Not heard, not even written, as though the moment
Included all that ever was, could ever be,
Even what one never could imagine.
Sing of the gift that brings one to imagine
Eternity within each tick of time,
The daily human miracle that can be
Heard in the intensity of music,
Every ecstasy that fills the moment,
Letting one find glory piece by piece.
In the eternal moment there is peace.
Zero and infinity. Imagine
All creation in a single moment,
Being in the grip of conscious time,
Eternities in thoughts, in words, in music,
That bring one to the finite brink of be,
Here beside the radiance of be.
Each of us can turn within towards peace,
Living in the midst of silent music,
Listening to songs one can imagine.
Even fuel-less flames go out in time.
Nor can forever be but in the moment.
Give thanks for every day, year, hour, moment,
Alive as only one who dies can be.
Be grateful for the unsought gift of time,
Ripening towards wisdom, love, and peace.
In every pulse, one can reimagine
Eternity, as grace, as timeless music.
Live, then, in the ambiance of music,
Alive in both forever and the moment,
Needing, to be joyful, to imagine
Death within the miracle of be,
Knowing that eternal inner peace
Endures beneath the holocaust of time.
Nor does the music vanish with the moment.
Nor can what one imagines well but be
A piece of praise song sung for one's own time.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.
Please direct all email correspondence to webmaster@poemsforfree.com.
Please direct all correspondence by mail to
Nicholas Gordon, P.O. Box 3043, Fort Lee, NJ 07024.
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