A Pearl Of A Story Poem by Alla Bozarth

The Creator loves a really good mystery,
which is why She started
telling herself the story of us.
Every word makes Her wonder
what we'll do next.

The Universe and each atom in it are pearls in the life of God,
the poet who practices making something of value
from loneliness or pain, and sometimes
is irritated into the creation of beauty
as an alternative to madness.

We become born, grow into our own
place in the world, take our small chosen
or accidental places in history, learn
to recover daily from its misery
by falling in love with all manner of mystery—
by simply being willing to do our best
when things are beyond our control,
as well as when they are not.

We follow the unforeseen sudden emergencies
of births and deaths and opportunities,
dive in to meet them without time to consider alternatives,
and there, in the bomb shelter of the day, in the airplane
surrounded by lightning, in the restaurant where all the food
spills into our laps during an earthquake disrupting
our orderly lives— our hand touches a stranger's hand,
or a friend's who's become a stranger in the darkness
and whose alluring mystery we experience again for the first time.

Or our lives change when we open the door
to a fine coffee store, step inside and become drawn
ever forward toward the irresistible grace and smile
of the person who offers us a sample of the perfect blend.

We keep falling in love with life, and so are invited
or tricked into seeing it all through.

Without thinking too much, we move
into the magnetic necessity of wonder and desire,
find a new but familiar form of the great mystery that keeps us alive,
the immersion in bliss that keeps moving the story forward.

We keep discovering us out of the muddle and grime,
the lonely frenzy of every day, and we keep moving on
toward the miraculous, the unknown, the yet to be spoken
next chapter of the whole story.

This poem is in the book The Frequencies of Sound
by Alla Renée Bozarth, copyright 2011. All rights reserved.