3 Poems by April Glaser

Sunsets

The moment after
one speaks of truth,
a savory sort of discomfort
enters the room.

My cell's eyes open wider,
and skin's pores broaden softer.
Until the vast field of pure awareness
starts humming a tune inside my chest -
it sounds like tingling fingers,
ready to be of use.

If ever heartbreak takes your hand,
go willingly.

Be unafraid of how you'll return.

Another sunset will not pass by
without destroying your entire life.


Re-membering

I don't know anything
about you or me. Or the way
life is supposed to be.
I gave up on safety in the desert.
I threw comfort over the cliff's edge
in a red rock canyon of mystery,
beauty and trajectory.

I have crawled on hands and knees
into the formidable unknown.
To be penetrated over and over again
by the power of each moment;
undomesticated and free.

To sit for days at waters bend, praying
for my own re-membering.

May I be humble in my forgetfulness
of everything they tried to teach me.


Embodiment

Pain has a heartbeat.
It lives inside my stomach,
like thorns, and the silence of night.

So I lay face down,
pressing my agony to the Earth.
Hard, cracked soil
rushes back up to meet me.
Together we breathe, and ache
and long for something more.
Crying out to shadow's creatures,
asking them to guide the way;
down deeper, into everything.

Is it possible for pain to unfold,
layer by merciless layer,
into a pleasure-filled species?
Like a faint candle hanging on to its
dying flame. Or a life not yet lived,
breaking loose in the thick black clouds
thundering along evening's edge.

Tonight I hold my affliction close,
like the timid thing it's become.
Pressing our bodies together, tenderly.
Rocking to the pulse of essentiality.

As I move, and also lay still
I feel it shaping me
into a strangely beautiful thing.


Bionote

April Glaser is an impassioned lover of the Earth, artistry and all things wild. She currently lives in Boulder, and is an adoring native to Colorado's mountainous landscape. April spends her time writing, dreaming, hiking, and trusting in the unfolding path laid out before her. aprilglaser@msn.com