When Our Love Is True (Sonnet Corona) Poem by Gert Strydom

I

When all things of our love are really true
like it was on every yesterday,
and nothing at all can make it decay,
when the special thing between me and you

do not pass us by as other things do
and on every sunny day by day
we do live, cry, laugh and sometimes play
and by tomorrow you feel this way too

and still love me then just as tenderly
then I am blessed have joys in excess
when you fill me, even when I lie prone,
your loving is more then I can express
and become part, in what I want to be
in a lower hue, a much simpler tone.

II

In a lower hue, a much simpler tone
where we bring smiles to each other’s faces,
this is how we make our love our own,
where we can walk to some different places

and always as allies walk hand in hand
turning defeat to the enemy’s retreat,
making this great earth our own piece of land
as true compatriots on the busy street.

Where at times some similar thoughts and speech
comes to hand without having to compare,
without having to split as each to each,
being one in everything that we share:

you are grounded in me like a new root,
my heart is like a growing, rising shoot.

III

My heart is like a growing, rising shoot
whose tiny boughs grow true and somewhat free,
my heart is like a spreading tiny taproot
that anchors you very deeply to me.

My heart is like a small burning cheroot
that always brings you some sweet tranquillity,
my heart is like a yellow ripened fruit
on your beloved type of small tree.

My heart is like some small fishes that scoot
away to safety in the deepest sea,
where none other big predator can loot
but only you in true serenity

and I really whither in your absence;
of me you are the living essence.

IV

Of me you are the living essence
of everything that is good in me
that I experience with your presence
the joy of life with a heart kind and free

and so very subtle, so very gently
your eyes wander into my humanity
as if suddenly and just presently
you do know each single activity

before I even consciously perceive
any kind of living words and deeds
and from you I always only receive
blessings for all my tiny wants and needs,

every single day you make my heart sing,
you complete me fully in everything.

V

You complete me fully in everything
while you walk and run in my shadow,
your love is my greatest single blessing
and yet you say that love you do not know.

When from all of my life you are gone,
something essential and great is missing
and when I am single, the only one
even every single thought and feeling

is halved separately and it feels
as if my whole presence, my body
from my head right up to my heels
do not belong to me or to anybody

without you my soul is really underfed,
as if the lamp shatters, no light is shed.

VI

As if the lamp shatters, no light is shed,
if the rain falls and the rainbow is gone,
when any music instrument is dead
and you say nothing and there is none

other light, rainbow, music or any words
the look in your eye, your soft sensual touch
still then remains as tiny records
of nearness of deeds of love, to vouch

for the feelings, for the real principles
that binds us so simply unseen together
and like true reverent following disciples
of an immaterial thing we do not bother

with separating, without you I have no peace,
I do not know if love can increase

VII

I do not know if love can increase,
boundless in its integrity to lie
in every small thing between you and I
and our happy feelings never to cease

even when with time our lives decrease
still to be under a blue radiant sky
to cherish what we have, before we die
even if our lives are not lived with ease

I would wish for you to be only with me,
to struggle along in life’s tournament
even if disaster comes out of the blue,
to live your life to your heart’s full content
and I would love you with intensity
when all things of our love are really true.