Mutability (Refrain Stanza Sequence) Poem by Gert Strydom

(after Percy Bysshe Shelley)

I

We are like leaves blown in a savage wind
where on another day no one again them will find,
or like notes echoing into the night on a piano
that in the morning does not anymore anywhere go
and in the matters of the heart and the mind
never again will I sacrifice myself just so,
even if streams of tears do forever flow,
your people cannot life up and leave their acts behind,
where on another day no one again them will find,

II

You and I are like day and night
and the one bares darkness the other light,
where we are in life's great mutability:
never together the two of us can be
where I cannot live a life in fright
even if with love you do quiver,
away from each other we are forever
where others do deem you out of my sight,
and the one bares darkness the other light.

III

Far too many times disrespect has been acted out on me:
the value of what I am and do your people do never see,
shameful acts, words and decisions you and them have taken
that have over time great resistance in me awaken
and now like this you do not want it to be
yet your children cannot and do not want to make the past undone,
where by your wishes and will our time together is gone
where from this savage treatment yet now even I am not free,
the value of what I am and do your people do never see.

[Reference:"Mutability" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.]