George, I've been learning to sing my verses to your tune, which I transcribed to help me try to figure out the metre. Is this version faithful to your melody? (I'll make ABC with fewer bars per stave if you prefer, but unless one can manually space the notes, some words are still likely to get tromped. Likewise with space between staves, if all verses visible at once.)

X:1
T:Deciduous Lives
C:M. Parrott/G. Papavgeris
M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:100
K:C
G/ED|C>CF(G/A/)|G>GED|C(D/E/)FG|D>DE>F|GCFE|DCD2|
w:1.A loved one's life, a with-ered* leaf. With pain and loss and* fear and\
w:grief Why do we bud and grow, to fall and die?
%w:2.We dance in winds of life and* pow-er Liv-ing ev'-ry* gif-ted\
%w:hour,* Shine with bright-est wis-dom near our end
%w:3.Would you give up your pain and* grief For safe-ty as a* pressed dry\
%w:leaf E-mo-tion-less and brit-tle on a page?
zGED|CCF(G/A/)|G>GED|C(D/E/)FG|D>DE>F|GCFE|DCC2|
w:Up-raised in green and ten-der* youth To catch the sun and* find our\
w:truth, Sweet strength re-pays the ones who lift us high.
%w:When wind-torn young, or age-worn* leaves In tum-bling, crum-bling* mem-o-\
%w:ries Make soil to feed next sea-son's growth a-gain.
%w:A per-fect bloom is one that's* due To die each year and* bloom a-\
%w:new, Re-new-ing year by year and age by age.
P:Refrain:
G(A/B/)c>z|d(c/A/)G2|EDC>z|FGD2|G(A/B/)c>E|F(G/A/)G>F|(E/F/)G(F/E/)D|Cz/|]
w:Leaves de-* cay,and for-ests* burn, Moun-tains riseand crum-ble too.\
w:No-thing's* lost: they will re-*turn Each one* giving life* a-new.

The duple rhythm of my revised chorus doesn't fit your music anymore. I've tried playing around with the notes, but the only changes that came close to working were putting in "A" and "E" for the added "and"s in the first and third bars of the chorus respectively: G(A/B/)c>A|d(c/A/)G2|EDC>E|FGD2|. Every other modification I tried sounded far worse than your original. I was working with the third bar, where "Mountains rise and" didn't seem to go with the falling notes you wrote for "Nothing's lost," and the rhythm of the last three bars where you had captured my original irregular meter delighfully. (I can adjust my lyrics to that by singing "gives" instead of "giving," although I'd prefer stresses to fall on "Each," "giv-," and "life.")

Gargoyle, although I've been receiving quite a few emails all along, some people lately reported bounced messages or server-timed-out errors when sending to me. Could you possibly try again, please? I've purged my inbox to see if that could be the problem. I would very much like to see your music.

Thank you all,
The fishwife from BC

P.S. I've got egg on my face! I learned the comforting song I was trying to write has been around for a couple of centuries, likening the life of a man to the seasons of a leaf that must "wither and soon fade away." How often has this wheel been reinvented?