There Are Things That You Cannot Avoid Poem by Gert Strydom

There are things that you cannot avoid
like the call-up instruction which cruelly
brings you to another world and measure you out
for whom you must become and be and stay
and you can never find escape
from violence, killing, guilt and grief.

There are things that a soldier cannot avoid
like war that cruelly let people suffer
with flames, bullets and bombs
and there are events that you cannot forget,
although you and you comrades freed the innocent
and at night it’s sweated out in dreams
and there are things that you cannot avoid.