Nothing remains the same, and you shouldn’t want it to – even when change is painful or frightening. Beautiful poetry about change reminds us that even as the seasons change and those we love become different or leave us behind, we evolve and grow into new versions of ourselves. The poems about change and growth in our collection reveal how change is exhilarating and bittersweet. As you read them, open your heart and mind, and embrace change as a welcome friend.
15 Exquisite Poems About Change That Will Transform You
We suggest you first read each poem to yourself and then read them out loud. You’ll be surprised how profoundly they touch you as you hear the flow of words and absorb their meaning. Not only are you reading poetry about changes in life – but also you’ll find these are life-changing poems that speak to the deepest parts of your psyche. So give them the time they deserve and savor each one like a treasured gift.
1. There is a life-force within your soul, by Rumi
There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life.There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek thatmine.O traveler, if you are in search of ThatDon’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek That. There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life.There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine.O traveler, if you are in search of ThatDon’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek That.
2. Change, by Mary Love
Count me among the weird, the odd, the unruly.Stare if you mustthen kindly step out of the way. I am here to change the worldand I have a lot to do.
3. When I Rise Up, by Georgia Douglas Johnson
When I rise up above the earth,And look down on the things that fetter me,I beat my wings upon the air,Or tranquil lie,Surge after surge of potent strengthLike incense comes to meWhen I rise up above the earthAnd look down upon the things that fetter me.
4. Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesFor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —over and over announcing your placein the family of things.
5. Change, by Wendy Videlock
Change is the new,improvedword for god,lovely enoughto raise a songor implicatea sea of wrongs,mighty enough,like other gods,to shelter,bring together,and estrange us.Please, god,we seem to say,change us.
6. For A New Beginning, by John O’Donahue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,Where your thoughts never think to wander,This beginning has been quietly forming,Waiting until you were ready to emerge.For a long time it has watched your desire,Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,Noticing how you willed yourself on,Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.It watched you play with the seduction of safety And the gray promises that sameness whispered,Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,Wondered would you always live like this.Then the delight, when your courage kindled,And out you stepped onto new ground,Your eyes young again with energy and dream,A path of plenitude opening before you.Though your destination is not yet clearYou can trust the promise of this opening;Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginningThat is at one with your life’s desire.Awaken your spirit to adventure;Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
7. Love’s Change, by Robert Bridges
So sweet love seemed that April morn.When first we kissed beside the thorn,So strangely sweet, it was not strangeWe thought that love could never change.But I can tell — let truth be told —That love will change in growing old;Though day by day is naught to see,So delicate his motions be.And in the end ’twill come to passQuite to forget what once he was,Nor even in fancy to recallThe pleasure that was all in all.His little spring, that sweet we found.So deep in summer floods is drowned,I wonder, bathed in joy complete.How love so young could be so sweet.
8. Change, by Kathleen Jessie Raine
ChangeSaid the sun to the moon,You cannot stay.ChangeSays the moon to the waters,All is flowing.ChangeSays the fields to the grass,Seed-time and harvest,Chaff and grain.You must change said,Said the worm to the bud,Though not to a rose,Petals fadeThat wings may riseBorne on the wind.You are changingsaid death to the maiden, your wan faceTo memory, to beauty.Are you ready to change?Says the thought to the heart, to let her passAll your life longFor the unknown, the unbornIn the alchemyOf the world’s dream?You will change,says the stars to the sun,Says the night to the stars.
9. The Song of the Potter, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round,Without a pause, without a sound:So spins the flying world away!This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,Follows the motion of my hand;For some must follow, and some command,Though all are made of clay!Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must changeTo something new, to something strange;Nothing that is can pause or stay;The moon will wax, the moon will wane,The mist and cloud will turn to rain,The rain to mist and cloud again,To-morrow be to-day.
10. The Struggle, by Edgar A. Guest
Life is a struggle for peace,A longing for rest,A hope for the battles to cease,A dream for the best;And he is not living who staysContented with things,Unconcerned with the work of the daysAnd all that it brings.He is dead who sees nothing to change,No wrong to make right;Who travels no new way or strangeIn search of the light;Who never sets out for a goalThat he sees from afarBut contents his indifferent soulWith things as they are.Life isn’t rest — it is toil;It is building a dream;It is tilling a parcel of soilOr bridging a stream;It’s pursuing the light of a starThat but dimly we see,And in wresting from things as they areThe joy that should be.
11. Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII, by Rainer Maria Rilke
Want the change. Be inspired by the flamewhere everything shines as it disappears.The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so muchas the curve of the body as it turns away.What locks itself in sameness has congealed.Is it safer to be gray and numb?What turns hard becomes rigidand is easily shattered.Pour yourself out like a fountain.Flow into the knowledge that what you are seekingfinishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.Every happiness is the child of a separationit did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becominga laurel,dares you to become the wind. 25 Exquisitely Beautiful Poems About Life 19 Profound Heartbreak Poems You Will So Relate To 21 Poems About Love And Pain
12. Before I, by Insiya K. Patanwala
Before I became strong, I knew what it was likeTo be weak,How difficult it is to love yourself,To find the wholeness that you seek.Before I knew the light,I have had my fair share of darkness, too,Where my world fell into a hopelessnessAnd I didn’t know how to get through.For I have known the tears it takes,The courage to stand up again,When you are broken down and bruisedAnd you know nothing but the pain.You forget to appreciate love,If you haven’t seen the hate,Till you forget the meaning of smile and laughter,And your heart is left abate.I have known the strength and courageIt requires to get it right,To face the things that hold you downAnd hold your head up and fight.Before I was who I am now, I was someone I didn’t want to be.I was lost, battered, and defeated,Before I knew how to be me!
13. A Little Bird Am I, by Hanna Heath
I ask but this one small thing.Give me the worldly skiesFor I cannot stay trapped hereA little bird am I….Let me leave this here land.Don’t keep me in a cage.Let me fly to the highest heights.Let me come of age.Let me soar among the clouds.Let my wings spread into flight.I need to be free; I need to seeThe world without a fright.I have spent my life so grounded,But my instincts pull me up.They tell me to go, to see the new, To finger each buttercup.I need to witness greatness,need the sorrow of poverty.I need to show the world my wingsAnd shed this gravity.I want a life of freedom,And I want to know what’s real.I want to step to the edge of earthAnd watch the sea reveal.I want to take the longest ride,And I want to feel the windI want to share this life with you,So, forgive me, for I have sinned.For I know I’m leaving you behindTo shadow in my wake,But I cannot stay in these four wallsSimply for your sake.I will keep you in my mirror.With me you’ll always be.I will share with you my tales,And I will return to thee.So I ask but this one small thingGive me the worldly skiesFor I cannot stay trapped hereA little bird am I….
14. Proverbios y Cantares XXIX, by Antonio Machado
Wayfarer, the only wayis your footsteps, there is no other.Wayfarer, there is no way,you make the way by walking.As you go, you make the wayand stopping to look behind,you see the path that your feetwill never travel again.Wayfarer, there is no way –Only foam trails to the sea.
15. The Change Has Come, by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The change has come, and Helen sleeps–Not sleeps; but wakes to greater deepsOf wisdom, glory, truth, and light,Than ever blessed her seeking sight,In this low, long, lethargic night,Worn out with strifeWhich men call life.The change has come, and who would say“I would it were not come to-day”?What were the respite till to-morrow?Postponement of a certain sorrow,From which each passing day would borrow!Let grief be dumb,The change has come. What changes are you experiencing in your life right now? Or how is life presenting you with a moment for transformation and growth? Hopefully, you found a change poem in our curation that speaks to your experiences and emotions.
