Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Populus tremuloides” by Lana Crossman.

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Populus tremuloides

By Lana Crossman

(for my mother)

We shake out a blanket

and wait for the fireworks.

All around us, families chatter.

Anticipation in a dozen languages.

Before the stars spray

pyrotechnics in a Cancer sky,

a startle of Trembling Aspen

shivers. Its leaves flicker off

and on, green and silver,

June to July.

Like the pins and needles

in your hand, nerves

tapping dots and dashes,

Morse code. Connect and miss.

In this moment, does it matter

if it’s giddy for what we have

or quaking for what’s yet to come?

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Copyright © Lana Crossman

Previously published in Pics or it didn’t happen (Pinhole Poetry Press, 2024).

Lana Crossman is an Ottawa-based poet who grew up in rural New Brunswick. Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Room, Untethered, Pinhole Poetry, flo., and other journals, and in her chapbooks, Pics or it didn’t happen (Pinhole Poetry Press, 2024) and Buoyant, at last (Rose Garden Press, 2022).

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