For All That You Have Given Me

For all that you have given me,
I can return but love. For you
Bound up the wounds I did not see
And gave me hopes and passions new.
I can return but love for you,
Whose unmoved faith my heart did move,
And gave me hopes and passions new,
And loved me till I turned to love.
Whose unmoved faith did my heart move?
The mother of my heart, not blood,
Who loved me till I turned to love.
And I became the soul I would.
The mother of my heart, not blood,
Bound up the wounds I did not see.
And I became the soul I would
For all that you have given me.
Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon

Her Life Was Not as Glorious as Some

Her life was not as glorious as some,
Devoted to her children and their children,
Taken up by quiet tedium:
What's left when dreams are scattered to the wind.
She loved too well, perhaps, and fought too hard
To make a marriage work that wasn't right.
She was, of all bright loveliness, a shard
Struck off to bring our lives the gift of light.
There are those whose lives are shaped by love;
Whose pleasures, rich and full, are found in giving;
Who make our wild hearts bloom and passions move
Into measured fields made lush by living.
Without her all the gold's gone from the day;
She will be missed far more than we can say.
Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon