Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Pine” by Fiona Hartmann.

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Pine

By Fiona Hartmann

Lay me down on a bed of pine needles

winter’s quill which inks the snow

white parchment evergreen

the last present you ever gave

me was a fountain pen

meant to write love

letters rather than goodbyes

accompanied by a bottled forest

to drown in camouflaging cracks

like an artic fox’s coat

I never meant to make a mess

but I couldn’t make glasses

of my hands

the only place the red

had to go was down

ground-soiled mother-soaked

I could never manage to hold

you through the frost

ice-mirrored water deep

the glacier will take me

back to you

if spring doesn’t

melt it first

if the earth

still has enough

warmth for that

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Copyright © Fiona Hartmann

Fiona Hartmann is a writer living in Toronto, Canada. She is interested in creating thought-provoking fiction that creates emotional connections that transcend through the digital landscape of modernity. She is a 2025 Lucky Jefferson Poetry Finalist. Find her published work in The Rush Magazine, Horseshoe Literary Magazine, Juste Milieu Zine and elsewhere.

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