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--
January 15th, 2026
Vancouver Poetry Contest #5 – First Place
by Lucas Rucchin
I speak of dark pines, nightly fires,
of soil touched by rain and flushed with life,
in these woodland places where I was raised,
my legs drawn up and hardened
by my father, who came from nothing,
who moulded his home with his bare hands,
who bushwhacked through the deepest
glades of the coast, who tells me now to look,
look up into the face of the pale grey morning
to see the lunar ghosts of the passing night
running down the mountainside, down,
weeping into the great stone bowls of the earth,
the day breaking, blue, pure, endless, the
latent greenness of the world now aglow
on the heads and contours of the hills,
the treebark red and muscular with the rain
in the canopies that branch darkly against the sky
like a web of veins, the falls rushing,
the far-off thunder of that ancient tongue,
and in the evening, one last fibre of sallow light,
warbles of unknown creatures in the dark,
final winds wafting in the shadows, and
in the pool of light from the cookstove
the silence of our sacred meal,
the love we hold for this unmapped place
under the stars that I have known
ever since I opened my eyes.
About the Poet
Lucas Rucchin resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Read the poet's biography and Wax Poetry and Art publications
on Lucas Rucchin's Artist Page.
This poem is also featured in Comet #7, published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Keywords: pines, earth, sacred, ancient, family, history
Previously published in Vancouver Poetry Magazine:
Seeing the Northshore
by Paul Sasges
Vancouver Poetry Magazine is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
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