APRILIA ZANK

APRILIA

ZANK

The God Of Small Miracles

walk with your eyes wide open

to the miracles of the world

and behold

how inconspicuous caterpillars

metamorphose into bright butterflies

how clay turns into exquisite vessels

in potters' diligent hands and wheels

while maple wood is polished to tune

in intricate bodies of sweet violins

watch

how infants grow and evolve

into strong, graceful lassies

and caring, brave-hearted men

watch and perceive

that the god of small miracles

has chosen to live

around and inside us all

Sermon

we are trapped

in shells

bones, blood, flesh

nerves, neurons, synapses

steel, lint, silk

nets spanned around us

by random fingers

but when we burst free

we stretch out our arms

to feed

the creatures of the world

and grow

into earthworms, birds, wolves

stars, saints, sermons

in implacable cycles

of an endless renewal

Look Prints

I took the walk

that you used to

sat on the same bench

searched for look prints

on the facade

across the alley

filtered the silence

for messages

a squirrel trod over

and waited...

maybe you had fed it

on crumbs and nuts

there were things

we hadn't known

about each other

words unspoken

sounds peeling off

like moth wings

from ragged silk

it was an early

January day

foggy with visions

of the past

and with the promise

of a late inception

APRILIA ZANK

Dr. APRILIA ZANK received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics for her thesis THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity, at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, where she started her academic career as a lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation Theory. The research for her PhD thesis was done in collaboration with six universities from Europe, and during her stay as a visiting lecturer at Alberta University of Edmonton, Canada. She is also a poet, a translator and the editor of two anthologies: the English – German anthology poetry tREnD Eine englisch - deutsche Anthologie zeitgenössischer Lyrik (LIT Verlag, Berlin), and the anthology POETS IN PERSON at the Glassblower (Indigo Dreams Publishing, U.K.). She writes verse in English and German, and was awarded a distinction at the “Vera Piller” Poetry Contest in Zurich. Her poetry collection, TERMINUS ARCADIA, was 2nd Place Winner at the Twowolvz Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 2013. Her poetry has been widely published in anthologies and periodicals in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Romania, India, the USA, Canada, Argentina, South-Africa and New Zealand. Her own volume of poetry BAREFOOT TO ARCADIA is due to come out soon. She translates from and into German, English, French and Romanian in collaborative projects with various poets and artists from all over the world. Thus, she organised the W-ORTE Literary Festival 2010 in Munich, the literary meetings POETS IN PERSON in London in 2012 and 2014, the event IMAGINE THE BEATS in Munich in 2015 and more. Aprilia is also a passionate photographer and organiser of photography exhibitions: several of her images are prize winners and have been selected for poetry book covers.