Eden Revisited Poem by Alla Bozarth

We’ve been reading it wrong.
It’s a story of how we took
Nature down with us all right,
but not because we’re such
important hot shots that what
we decide goes for everybody,
or the Creator is such an abusive
s.o.b. that he punishes the innocent
for the crimes of the guilty if
the guilty are godly enough.
We are a twisted species.
We bend our view of the universe
around ourselves as center cog.
By our distortion we have injured Eden.
We haven’t a clue.

Complexity grants that the least
significant events or choices
affect everything to infinity —
microbes on pear trees, and
the honey bee as well as
human beings.

Our infant species dreamed it was
above its elders, beyond its betters,
the high chair tyrant entitled to rule
the rest, and worse — granted this
by a god. We named the others and
proclaimed them other, ourselves
what counts, holier than them.
We threw ourselves out of Eden.
Injured by us but alive,
it’s still here all around us.
We have only to return to our senses,
wake from our hubris, sit down
with our creature kin and humbly ask
by what name each knows itself,
and listen, without denial or defense,
for the names they have been saving up
to call us.

Once that’s over we can negotiate
everything and start again
with what’s left.
Then —

In the beginning …


This poem is from the books, Accidental Wisdom, iUniverse 2003
and This is My Body: Prayers for Earth, Prayers from the Heart
by Alla Renée Bozarth, iUniverse 2004. All Rights Reserved.