This poetry collection is not only a celebration of love, but an embrace of what has once been and what will come again

**SHAMROCK SUN**

By: Miranda Kanter

*@miranda.kanter*

I think of you as the colour yellow.
Those specs and spatters of dust suspended in light; hushed yellow as it breaks through your window. Your window, which keeps its back to the sun, so sunrise for us only happens at noon. A midday sunrise – you are a morning delayed; seeping through the Irish flag that covers your window, washing that yellow light green.
I think of you as the colour red.
As your rouge-streaked cheeks toning mine, untempered. By September, you’ll be well back in Belfast; I turn my head to the side and stick out my tongue to scrape it clean of the words I and *love* and *you*. Without time to wonder whether I really yet mean the words stuck to the tips of my nails, I tuck them into the hair that I brush back behind your ear, for you to take back home.
Back home, I eat as you fall asleep; fall asleep just when you wake. When I wake, it’s with the sun at noon, your time.
I think of you still as a midday sunrise.

**POCKET MEMORIES: HOLDING ON**

By: Ella Morale

*@pocket.elfie*

it feels so special to hold your
book with your pencil marks
scratched through it
i want you to mark my skin
i want you to fold my corners in
at the parts that feel most
important to you

**TANGIBLE LOVE**

By: Eri Dixon

*@eri.ecdc*

Hold the fire until it burns your hands then keep holding.

**UNTITLED MUSING ON DAY #103**

By: Florence Syed

*@sleepyy.pixie*

I had to learn the hard way that love should not be unconditional.
An honourable notion
But one that is dishonest
The way that I love is through devotion
I will spend day after day running my fingers through the knots of your hair and awakening early to place honey and bread at your feet and I will clutch your hand and kiss at your flesh in attempts to soothe when your eyes are wet
I will devote my flesh, time, blood, bones and anything you’d wish from me all that I pray is that you ask me to
All that I pray is that you desire me to
recognize my yearning to love you, to need you, to want you, to take you
But love without conditions is one that neglects the self
It is one that leaves the giver with empty hands and tired knuckles
One that gives and gives and gives but the reciprocation can never be of equal footing
Not when I deify you into a god and lie on my knees before you
Worshipping and praying in a manner that many would argue is unbecoming
But devotion has made me reckless and simultaneously weak
Weak knees, weak ankles and weakened restraints
and by placing you so high it leaves you in no other position but to look down at me
And that is not the way that I desire to be looked at by any lover.

**EVERYONE**

By: Annie Chantraine

*@goo_g1rl*

I want to be in love with everyone in the world.
My physical body is only capable of such a limited expression of love compared to the sheer scope of love I feel shoot through me like sun arrows.
I want to feel every heartbreak, every tender cheek graze, every tear hitting every casket, every kiss planted on the lips for the first time.
I want to feel it all and I want to make everyone feel it too.
I want to follow the thread that weaves us together.
I want to start at beginnings and cross boundaries of space and time and body and world
I want to return to you and start again, forever, differently each time.

**Flame To A Wick**

By: Harsh Patankar

*@vantablackcult*

Candied words like wisps of smoke
Float between our lips
Filling the room with the sweet hum
Of gods flame to a wick
When I eat the sun
Casting all in my shade
I’ll leave you the moon
The only jewel in my blade
Slick in my own depths
You refract hands of light
Many colours light a lamp
As I fall from great height

**SWEAT IT OFF AND THE REST IS JUST A DAY WITH YOU**

By: Emmanuelle Toohey-Carignan

*@ithinkthatuh*

Moonlight on the open shore
The streetlights glowing door to door
Your frame reclining on the floor
I don’t think I’ll speak anymore
What if I hurt you?
Wipe the plasma off your sore
Outside we chase green shining from lighthouses in distant dark
We ran through eyesore streets and dog parks
Let off our leash
What if I lose you to my longing?

**(SUCKER PUNCH)**

By: Anna-Giselle Funes-Eng

*@annagiselle.fe*

I think I might’ve loved you
In another life before
I wonder, is it selfish
To maybe ask you for one more?
Stand at the window waiting
You frost the glass with bated breath
Thinking as you breathe out the world
With lovely slow, uneven heft
Maybe I did love you once
I never can be sure
I think that if I loved you
I’d still want to. Just one more.

By Alexander Sowa

‘Poetry in Union: Railway Lines and Valentines’ lets travellers get a personalized love poem written by one of seven professional Toronto poets

Union Station passersby were encouraged to engage in early Valentine’s Day festivities by allowing Toronto poets to personalize a poem for them.

Commuters and visitors were invited to sit down, enjoy a free cup of hot chocolate and doughnuts while the poets did their work.

“You sit with a person in an intimate space, at a desk. Not across the desk, but together. And you just ask them questions. What’s on your mind? What’s on your heart? What do you think of when you think of train travel?” said Kate Marshall Flaherty, organizer of the event.

Kate Marshall Flaherty at ‘Poetry in Union.’ (CanCulture/Alexander Sowa)

Flaherty continued to explain what the participants could expect at the end of their session with their Toronto poet.

“Eventually, as any poet will tell you, you get an image or a spark or an idea, and then you write for a minute or two. And then you read it to the traveller. Even amongst ourselves when we did it, it was very powerful. I can only imagine what it must be like for an unsuspecting traveller,” she said.

Hannah Martin, a marketing company owner, said that it was interesting to have someone attentively listen to what they had to say, as well having questions posed to them that people would not normally ask.

“(The poets) ask you questions … like ‘What is it in your life that’s going on that you need this for?’ And then you have to think about it,” said Martin.

Hannah Martin, left, with her company co-owner Shannon Litt, right, posing with their poems at the event. (CanCulture/Alexander Sowa)

Dominique Bernier-Cormier, one of the poets, described the writing process as wonderful and intimate.

“It feels like you create a space very quickly where people aren’t strangers anymore, very fast. But it’s tough because with only a couple of questions, you have to get a whole bunch of images to put in the poem,” he said.

Dominique Bernier-Cormier, Toronto poet, smiling while on a break from poem-writing. (CanCulture/Alexander Sowa)

Chloe Catan, the public art program manager for Waterfront Toronto, said that she gained a great admiration for the poets.

“I decided that I wanted to give my husband a poem for Valentine’s Day. I told Dominique the story of how we met in Mexico City. He listened to me for a few minutes, and then wrote a beautiful poem. I’m really happy,” said Catan.

‘A big first step’

The event, “Poetry in Union: Railway Lines and Valentines” was presented by the League of Canadian Poets.

According to Ayesha Chatterjee, the league’s former president, they are a “non-profit organization whose mandate is to encourage and promote poetry in Canada, as well as Canadian poets.”

This event is the first of its sort to be held by the league. “We usually don’t do events. Usually what we do is we’re in the background, we help to provide funding, we tweet, we use social media, we do stuff like that. We have an annual lecture at a conference, but this is the first time we’ve done anything quite like this. It’s a big first step,” said Chatterjee.

Flaherty emphasized that it was important for the poets involved to be from Toronto and showcase diversity.

“We really tried to have a cross-section of Toronto, which I think is the most multicultural, most diverse population in the world. It’s really important that we covered a microcosm of the world in Toronto,” said Flaherty.

The seven poets involved are all Toronto residents - Dominique Bernier-Cormier, Ronna Bloom, Michael Fraser, Suparna Ghosh, Jessica Hiemstra, Rajinderpal Pal and Kate Marshall Flaherty.

The Right Time

Flaherty said that she was inspired to create the event in 2017 after being sent a video of “The Poet Is In,” a similar event that was held at Grand Central Station in New York.

Since Union Station had just been renovated, she said that they were working hard in order to make it accessible, arts friendly and community wide.

Flaherty said that she hopes to make this an annual event and that they are working with Union Station to make it happen.

If you are interested in more events like this at Union Station, you can view a full calendar of all the free activities they offer at torontounion.ca/event.