Alla Bozarth

Alla Bozarth Poems

Pack Nothing.
Bring only your determination to serve
and your willingness to be free.
...

The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected
to stay forever
...

We do not want to rock the boat,
you say, mistaking our new poise
for something safe.
...

If you feel your life
needs solving, try
three methods—
absolve all that is
...

Bakerwoman God,
I am your living bread.
Strong, brown Bakerwoman God,
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.
...

Music is everywhere
music is in sound and
music is in silence
...

Of the three types of narcissism,
benign, malignant and malicious,
the first can be charming and harmless,
the second is primarily self-destructive,
...

8.

Reality is intricate and vast.
You are real.
Life is cosmically generous.
You are gifted, alive.
...

It began and was over in a single day.
November 7,1917 brought down the Romanoffs
and Russian history of a thousand years.
...

Prayer is intimacy with the Great Mystery.
Be every moment aware of the Presence —
how you are loved!
...

She enacts and teaches the truth —
embracing the blessing of limitation
she accepts Life’s new gift of freedom,
she discovers her power to choose,
...

Unbowed toward men
she bows only to Earth, our Mother.

She speaks truth to men with brutality in their brains
...

Save the Infinite Yes for God alone.
All others require a Positive No
from time to time, and often yes, also—
But learn your limits and avoid the naive yes,
...

Before Jesus
was his mother.

Before supper
...

15.

There is a new sound
of roaring voices
in the deep
and light-shattered
...

Strawberry Moon
Wild Rose Moon
to begin and end
this month.
...

No matter your circumstance,
Be in harmony with your essential miraculous life
And live from the core of your being that is
Older and younger than anger and grief and all loss—
...

She had no name in Scripture,
but history remembered her tragedy —
that of being trapped in an unhealed past.
...

When we pray
for one another,
we are leaning
over the cusp
...

Light casts diamond
flash on fishes’ backs,
seagulls fly below me.
Spindrift, silverwhite, foaming
...

Alla Bozarth Biography

Daughter of a Russian-speaking Ukrainian mother and a Welsh, Celtic, Osage and French American father; poet, Episcopal priest, soul caregiver who lives at the foot of Mt. Hood in Western Oregon and has published 21 prose and poetry books and 4 audio albums with 12 more large poetry collections,7 small books and 2 CDs ready for publication. Alla has written award winning poetry for over 40 years. Her poems are widely used all over the world, often in collaboration with visual artists, singers and dancers. For permission to reprint a poem, please send Alla your request using the 'message' feature on her PoemHunter page. See Alla's blog, Words and Images Welcoming Light in the Wilderness http: //allabozarthwordsandimages.blogspot.com/ and find links to all of her single theme blogs from this menu: http: //www.blogger.com/profile/07163511991184059081)

The Best Poem Of Alla Bozarth

Passover Remembered

Pack Nothing.
Bring only your determination to serve
and your willingness to be free.

Don't wait for the bread to rise.
Take nourishment for the journey,
but eat standing, be ready
to move at a moment's notice.

Do not hesitate to leave
your old ways behind—
fear, silence, submission.

Only surrender to the need
of the time— to love
justice and walk humbly
with your God.

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.
Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.

Then begin quickly,
before you have time to sink back
into the old slavery.

Set out in the dark.
I will send fire to warm and encourage you.
I will be with you in the fire
and I will be with you in the cloud.

You will learn to eat new food
and find refuge in new places.
I will give you dreams in the desert
to guide you safely home to that place
you have not yet seen.

The stories you tell one another around your fires
in the dark will make you strong and wise.

Outsiders will attack you,
and some who follow you,
and at times you will weary
and turn on each other
from fear and fatigue and
blind forgetfulness.

You have been preparing for this for hundreds of years.
I am sending you into the wilderness to make a way
and to learn my ways more deeply.

Those who fight you will teach you.
Those who fear you will strengthen you.
Those who follow you may forget you.
Only be faithful. This alone matters.

Some of you will die in the desert,
for the way is longer than anyone imagined.
Some of you will give birth.

Some will join other tribes along the way,
and some will simply stop and create
new families in a welcoming oasis.

Some of you will be so changed
by weathers and wanderings
that even your closest friends
will have to learn your features
as though for the first time.
Some of you will not change at all.

Some will be abandoned
by your dearest loves
and misunderstood by those
who have known you since birth
and feel abandoned by you.

Some will find new friendship
in unlikely faces, and old friends
as faithful and true as the pillar of God's flame.

Wear protection.
Your flesh will be torn
as you make a path
with your bodies
through sharp tangles.
Wear protection.

Others who follow may deride
or forget the fools who first bled
where thorns once were, carrying them
away in their own flesh.

Such urgency as you now bear
may embarrass your children
who will know little of these times.

Sing songs as you go,
and hold close together.
You may at times grow
confused and lose your way.

Continue to call each other
by the names I've given you,
to help remember who you are.
You will get where you are going
by remembering who you are.

Touch each other
and keep telling the stories
of old bondage and of how
I delivered you.

Tell you children lest they forget
and fall into danger— remind them
even they were not born in freedom
but under a bondage they no longer
remember, which is still with them, if unseen.

Or they were born in the open desert
where no signposts are.

Make maps as you go,
remembering the way back
from before you were born.

So long ago you fell
into slavery, slipped
into it unawares,
out of hunger and need.

You left your famished country
for freedom and food in a new land,
but you fell unconscious and passive,
and slavery overtook you as you fell
asleep in the ease of your life.

You no longer told stories of home
to remember who you were.

Do not let your children sleep
through the journey's hardship.
Keep them awake and walking
on their own feet so that you both
remain strong and on course.

So you will be only
the first of many waves
of deliverance on these
desert seas.

It is the first of many
beginnings— your Paschaltide.
Remain true to this mystery.

Pass on the whole story.
I spared you all
by calling you forth
from your chains.

Do not go back.
I am with you now
and I am waiting for you.


This poem is from the books, Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey by
Alla Renée Bozarth, revised edition 1988, distributed by the poet;
Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys
by Alla Bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne, North Star Press
of St. Cloud 1990; Accidental Wisdom by Alla Renée Bozarth,
iUniverse 2003; This is My Body: Praying for Earth,
Prayers from the Heart, by Alla Renée Bozarth, iUniverse 2004 and
the audio cassette Water Women by Alla Renée Bozarth, Wisdom House
1990. All rights reserved. The poem can be purchased as a chapbook
at bearblessings.com. For permission to reprint the poem or excerpts
from it, please send Alla an email describing how you want to use it,
type Permission to Reprint in the Subject line and email your request
via the Contact form on Poem Hunter. Thank you!

Alla Bozarth Comments

Alla Bozarth 24 October 2018

Thank you, Mary Jo Thummel!

1 0 Reply
Mary Jo Thummel 24 October 2018

I love your poetry it refreshes my spirit.

2 0 Reply

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