with sincere apologies to Gilles Vigneault
Of course, you want your countryto be one long season,when snow hides the dark mud,when nothing moves and nothing grows,when the white sky and white land agreeto dissolve the horizon à la lointaine, and onecan judge no distances.
The treachery of spring, when the landchanges colours, the leaves are turncoats,and the rippling fieldsare stripped of their sheetsand wait to be stained with seed.
You are waiting for another winter,when the fleur-de-lys' white petalswill cover the earth in a garden of snow,the cold air will remain cloudless,free of the visible breath of spoken h's,and your swallowed aspirationswill take root in your body and growout of your mouth, watered by a clean tongue.
Ton pays est une frontièreineffaceable, une cicatrice dans la terre,dont la terre ne se gêne pasparce qu'elle est portéesous un manteau de castor, sous une ceintureflechée.
Here, what have I proven? All dependson where you're coming from.
My country is not your country of snow.Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est ma peau.
