Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “from ‘Some Trees Grow'” by Gillian Sze.

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from “Some Trees Grow”

By Gillian Sze

Some trees grow together and never touch. Side by side, they hoist for the sky. Their branches never

traverse and entangle. Even leaves, ever accommodating, know where the neighbouring trees are

and reach only so far. The space between canopies is know as crown shyness. If you look up, you’ll see

that trees fit together, adopting the lines of the other like puzzle pieces. Between them is space for the

falling light. Bright borders where speech relays back and forth, leaf to leaf. Look up. The shyness of

trees allows the sun to slip unthinkably between you and me.

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Copyright © Gillian Sze

Previously published in An Orange, A Syllable (ECW Press, 2025).

Gillian Sze is a poet and children’s writer. She is the recipient of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Quiet Night Think and the QWF’s A. M. Klein Poetry Prize for her latest book, An Orange, A Syllable. Her books for children have been shortlisted for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards and CBC Kids Read. She teaches creative writing and literature at Concordia University.

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