Remember the Utility of Shame

Music: Goldberg Variations: Variation 9.
By Johann Sebastian Bach.
Performed by Kimiko Ishizaka at the Free Music Archive
under a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication license.

Subscribe to this site on Substack

Subscribe to this site on YouTube

Subscribe to this site on Medium

Follow this site on Facebook

Follow this site on Instagram

Hear me read
the poem as
an MP3 file.

Watch me read
the poem as
a YouTube video.

Alpha List

Jewish Poems

Poems for the
High Holy Days

Philosophical
Poems

About This
Site

Poems for
Free

Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon

Remember the utility of shame,
On which in part our decency depends.
Such sentiments evolved to serve our ends,
Having given ballast to one's name.
How apt that to ourselves we be revealed
As time pauses in between the years,
Season of incantatory tears,
Harrowed for the sins we have concealed.
Allow your shame full access to your heart,
Nor flinch from bearing witness to your part,
As only what is treated can be healed,
Here, now, while your fate is still unsealed.

Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.



[about this site] [poems for free] [poem of the week]
[site policy] [about me] [links]