Change Poems
A Meeting In A Part
by Wendell Berry
In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: "How you been?"
......
Catch A Little Rhyme
by Eve Merriam
Once upon a time
I caught a little rhyme
I set it on the floor
but it ran right out the door
I chased it on my bicycle
but it melted to an icicle
I scooped it up in my hat
......
I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You
by Pablo Neruda
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.
I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.
......
Time And Love
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Time flies. The swift hours hurry by
And speed us on to untried ways;
New seasons ripen, perish, die,
And yet love stays.
The old, old love – like sweet at first,
At last like bitter wine –
I know not if it blest or curst,
Thy life and mine.
Time flies. In vain our prayers, our tears,
......
Emergency Haying
by Hayden Carruth
Coming home with the last load I ride standing
on the wagon tongue, behind the tractor
in hot exhaust, lank with sweat,
my arms strung
awkwardly along the hayrack, cruciform.
Almost 5OO bales we've put up
this afternoon, Marshall and I.
And of course I think of another who hung
like this on another cross. My hands are torn
by baling twine, not nails, and my side is pierced
......
The Wind of Change
by Igor Vykhovanets
The "wind of change" begins to blow:
One foul reign replaced by woe.
Every horror yields another—
Still the soul grows sadder, darker.
Vice is branded "good" once more,
Or "progress" masks corruption's core.
Chains keep changing shape and fashion,
Lies grow sharper through deception.
......
Unbecoming
by Aditi Hayaran
What happened, oh my sugar,
The change in you—I can't quite figure.
And I know you are not bad,
An aspect or two that's making me sad.
Defended your name with the version you were,
Only to get disappointed by what you are.
Is that the new ones changing your colour,
The image once so clear, getting blurred.
The things you say now, which my old sweet one hated,
O kind one, from yourself have you deviated?
......
The River That Refused to Keep Me
by Oscar Auliq-Ice
There is a river I return to
not because it waits for me,
but because it does not.
It moves with a certainty
I have never possessed—
not hurried, not delayed,
only committed to its direction
without the burden of explanation.
......
Not Money, Not Everything
by Aloo Denish Obiero
They lived in a different era, in a different area,
Not today, and never in our cities,
And so they drew a conclusion,
That money is not everything. Right.
I live in this era, in this area,
Today, and in these cities,
And behold, a thing so strange:
The newest disability is lack of money. Right.
......
Schuivende grond
by Mario Odekerken
Wat vandaag helder lijkt
kan morgen in nevels verdwijnen.
We spreken zekerheden uit
alsof ze stenen zijn,
maar zelfs steen verkruimelt
onder de tijd.
De waarheid van vandaag
kan morgen een leugen zijn.
......
