Canticle

by Leonard St-Aubin

Beloved of the sky,
said Emily Carr,
these tall pines against blue sky
​—that will never be timber--
trunks slender, twisted 
where they bent to find the sun
through the shade of hardwood trees,
and dropped low branches
'til only their tops,
feathery, exposed, catch light.
Now, like northern palms,
they rise up above
the bare winter canopy,
only they are green,
illuminated 
by afternoon sun,
each cluster of fine needles 
a starburst, lit or backlit,
vibrates, imperceptibly
a hymn to the sky.

* * *

LEONARD ST-AUBIN divides his time between Ottawa and a summer home in PEI. His poems have been published in RED: The Island Story Book (November 2025), in Bywords.ca and in the Pownal Street Press collection FIONA.

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