Three poems from April Glaser of "Wildy Open"

 © Alison Mayor

The Wind

This life is not yours to keep,
She says.

Learn to love.
And in love, 
learn to give it all away. 

Stop clenching your fists
and hobbling forward,
like the wretched inheritance
our parents deny passing on to us -

but did. 

Instead, 
learn to open. 
And breathe

but not like strangled children
drowning in shallow waters -

like the wind,
tearing through the trees. 
Screaming. 

Listen. 

Learn to be everything you love -

higher than the sky
and deeper than the ocean-

then master the art 
of gifting it all away. 


* * *  

 © Alison Mayor

The Fighter

So we are like ships,
crashing into one another
then sinking back
into ourselves.

This fire fueled by prayer;

Great Mountain,
with your ridge back beauty
and immoveable strength,

take my hand. 

Walk with me into the village,
where they have thoroughly forgotten
the weight of your name. 
Teach me how to be a silent force;
so loud, so enormous,
all deaf hearts tune 
to the choir of your truth. 
Help me to soften
around the things I hate,
and have no control 
to possibly change. 
Or break me in two,
three, four hundred distant ways
until I am as imperfect as you -
with shadows I can call home
and learn to crawl up into. 

Show me the way of family
flowering over narrow passages, 
intoxicated by life, and everything
becomes more beautiful with time. 

So the stories we carry 
have never felt more precious,
as we look out across this unlit season
and wonder how you’ll possibly survive. 


* * *  

 © Alison Mayor

All Things Real


Sorrow is the door 
by which my inheritance
showers gifts of sustenance
into my outstretched heart. 

So I enter

and wind around the circular
square of buzzing sensation,
until I come face to face
with the tanned and toned
silhouette of solitude

grazing upon red sunflowers,
aroused by the seduction 
of springtime’s end. 

Dark clouds loom,
casting shadows atop
our instinctual bodies,
so I inch towards my aloneness
as this exquisite one takes bold
steps back towards me. 

Slowly we stop, and stare
into the deep set eyes
of intimacy
and the understanding 
of all things real. 

As the sky parts,
eager faces turn East. 
But I greet the sun
in a different way

by quieting my pace to meet up
with the pulse of the Earth
and revealing parts of myself
that I’ve been told to keep covered;

exposed skin, caught between the teeth
of warmth and wind. And the lingering shyness
of being witnessed in my wilderness.  

 * * *

April Glaser is extra-ordinarily sensitive to the environment - to the steady flow of energy and emotion bubbling below the surface of everything. Writing is the artistic expression she utilizes to channel life's immensity. She visualizes artistry and profound beauty in this mysterious way of being. It is her birthright. It is what makes her fully alive. This is what her poetry is made of. After all, she was born into the dark hands of night.  Visit [and subscribe to] April HERE

  © April Glaser