Presentation Poem by Alla Bozarth

After a year of thorns
and disease, rambling
vines and blighted leaves,
at year’s end near first frost
the lavender rose bush
presents its only rose,
not gone all wild yet and barren,
but still has it to give,
the Great Teacher’s lesson:
You can be life battered
and still bloom.


This poem is from the book, This Mortal Marriage:
Poems of Love, Lament and Praise by Alla Renée Bozarth,
iUniverse 2003. All rights reserved.