Falling under the gaze of others

Naive hope 

Fragile strength 

Face turned towards the sun

Despite everything, 

Anchored in the earth, 

The awakening of a

Snowy spring

This is what she learned,

At the age of 7, 

At the French-speaking school

That even the most fragile flowers 

Could be protected

Despite the shade and the light

The misery and the drought

Feet in the water 

Head in the air

The fullness of solitude 

And the flood of love 

Between the time of wolves and dogs

The time of the cutting machines

The time of the heartbeat

The chorus of a frightened deer 

This is what she learned

At the age of 50

At the French school

The cry of pain

Transformed

A gentle reminder

A return to the silence 

Of love

A concentrated elixir

For the man who perceives it

The awakening of a primordial instinct 

Provocation and vigilance 

The spark of the present moment

And she, a useless necessity

In a world of concrete and asphalt 

Compacted and contained

When man touches her pollen, 

She turns to him, as if to remind him of 

His own history, his nobility, 

And, in a moment of grace,

A memory 

A gatherer of spirits

A cultivator of souls

A hunter of ghosts 

A sower of great ideas

A reminder that man is mighty

That he has in his hands the possibility 

of bringing his trillium to life or of killing her

Everything depends on the sparkle of truth,

On the symbiosis of the moment,

The man’s gaze brought to his trillium

will make him discover his sense of value.  

Written by Leeça St-Aubin

Photography by Suzanne T. Bohay