The secret is to relax into your unease. Put on something well-worn, comfy and return, guilt-free, to your bed. Welcome in whatever images arrive. Let the imagined knife, the hurtful words, the emptied vault of desire be given honorable seats at your table and be equally fed. You and only you can rescue your stray, abandoned self. This scene is a small part of your story. It is the dirt that is needed for the lotus to bloom. Everything you experience is necessary. Open your arms wide, embrace the dark night of the soul as if it were a beggar at your door.
Jane Ellen Glasser’s poetry has appeared in numerous national and international journals. In the past she served as the poetry critic for The Virginian-Pilot, poetry editor for the Ghent Quarterly and Lady Jane’s Miscellany, and co-founder of the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review. She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry for Light Persists (2006), and the Poetica Publishing Chapbook Contest for The Long Life (2011). Crow Songs (2021) is her tenth poetry collection. To learn more about the poet and her work, visit www.janeellenglasser.com.
The Pine Cone Review 