Winter 2024-2025

Pine Psalm

By Emma Galloway Stephens

I look to the hills
for peace

I crave the climb
if not the peak

Rocks and roots
don’t trouble me

nor the nameless rustle
under fallen leaves

I’ve come to worship
with the pine trees

mud on my ankles
bruises on my knees

God was in the garden 
all along

older than the hills
Eternal         Strong

About the Author


Emma Galloway Stephens is a poet and professor from the Appalachian foothills in South Carolina. Her work has appeared in The Windhover, The Nature of Things, Persephone Magazine, Ekstasis Magazine, Thimble Literary Magazine, and two anthologies.