“Infinite Crossings of Stars” by Lorraine Gane

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Infinite Crossings of Stars” by Lorraine Gane, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in May 2020.


Infinite Crossings of Stars

By Lorraine Gane

For Phyllis

A tattoo of lights lifts our eyes

to the black door of night

then you say Oh, the stars,

as we step slowly to the car.

Earlier your poems

held rapt a roomful of

listeners with spirits chittering

at fog-flyers up on Mt. Maxwell,

the silent beauty of a bowl

not a loving cup to drink from,

the space between brushing wings

of four swans at Fulford Harbourโ€”

this night yours under

the infinite crossings of stars


Copyright ยฉ Lorraine Gane

First appeared in Poetry Pause in May 2020.

Lorraine Gane was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and grew up in Toronto. In the mid-seventies she graduated from Carleton Universityโ€™s Honours Journalism Program, then worked as a full-time writer and editor for major Canadian newspapers and magazines until 1989, when she began freelancing. In the early nineties, she also started teaching writing at universities and colleges such as Ryerson, McMaster, and Georgian (later at Vancouver Island University and the University of Victoria), as well as conducting her own private workshops. Selections from Lorraineโ€™s first poetry book, Even the Slightest Touch Thunders on My Skin (Black Moss Press, 2002), were shortlisted for the Canadian Literary Awards in 1997 and the League of Canadian Poets chapbook contest. Among her publications since moving to Salt Spring Island, B.C., are the chapbooks Beauty and Beyond: Songs of Small Mercies and Arc of Light by Raven Chapbooks, and two full-length volumes of poems, The Way the Light Enters (Black Moss Press, 2014) and The Blue Halo (Leaf Press, 2014). She is a winner of the Gwendolyn MacEwen Award for Best Suite of Canadian Poems (2023). Lorraine is completing another poetry collection, among other books. She mentors writers through online courses, consultations, workshops, and manuscript editing. www.lorrainegane.com.


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