français / Mi’kmaq
– Translated by Jo-Anne Elder
In the eyes of a stranger
finding ourselves in a familiar place
aligned
with the wolves
of urban myths
with the mist of Oregon
Moncton or Chicago
wherever
enter into these imperfect stories
these endless films
in which the animal
dies
behind our backs
…
No doubt, we give in too often
carted around out of nowhere
a mound of questions
The sum of all our beings :
what is it,
a thousand pieces scattered around ?
Do we not carry the imprint
of all those whose place we have taken ?
through our everyday struggles
wounded butterflies flyaway hair lotus flowers
the core of our origins endures
a nickname
slightly old-fashioned
somewhere between city and country
a bike ride
in black and white
a few pennies
for an old school
without a name without an address
a feeling you have at the end of a path
a jazz singer
with her I love youz
the giggling ripples of fresh water
their sand stories breezes underbrush
where the dead bury themselves
…
The house shifts
as soon as we drift off to sleep
it scrapes the bottom of dreams
it stands guard
against forgetting
the house dances
as soon as the hens wake up
it invites shadows to draw closer
lurk in the trenches
the house has a first name
when we leave it
a fiction a story a novel
a day or a night
a bomb a tsunami a crane
children’s rhymes
are ripped away from it
and it continues singing
in the ruins
of underground rivers
…
My veils fall down
and my hair
to the bottom of the sewers
the pores of my skin no longer hold
the itches of the lowlands
the ruse of the bamboos
the venom of wasps
the dust of laughter the dust of my enemies
bruised promises
transparent
heels too soft
wandering around the present
while my childhood memories
burnt apples porridge brown sugar
slide inside the lining of my coat
What is on the other side of these stories ?
What becomes of beauty
that is hidden in a body
and has a name copied a thousand times ?
What becomes of these minutes
crushed by gravity
gazes extinguished plastic souls
under the beams of projectors
meticulous and finely tuned
What becomes of watercolours
if they refuse to do my bidding
lie on muddy ground
under opaque skies ?
…
Junkie
the sound of fog
the same story
repeats itself
always the same alleyways
that walk over me
I do not belong to myself
I taste the emptiness
I fear the dance
I do not hope
the birds don’t care
inflating my compass
waiting room
the pupils of my eyes are lost
inside a window well
November
trees like puzzle pieces
my face like a savannah
I open my skin
to the weight of the air
I wear myself out
when you say learn you mean love
I patch my language together
I get cold
when I try to find clarity
to avoid crumbling into powder
I bathe
in the sides of snowbanks the crisp twigs of sky
the fossils finally awaken
I wonder
if I could become a garden once again
…
The vice grip
clenches the poems
curled up in every cell
Why kill us ?
phantoms of dust
under the lanterns
of brutality
I have lost my bones
in one of this country’s nowheres
it was too narrow for me
isolated inside my symbols
insulated inside my reserve
Leslie Joanne Michelle Donna Lynn Melissa Jolene
is my name
leaving the weight
of this eroding world behind
hanging
red
dress
…
The man is eating
the bruises of the world
under the neon lights
there is never any rest
compacted in the concrete
voices rise up
corridors grandstanding
with their billboard lies
everything you can never see
in the shadows of industry
they tell us about
the language of conflict and tension
about storms hurricanes
injustice intimidation
the dialogues between generations
about the Chiassons the Landrys the Comeaus
the Millers the Turcottes the Roys the Nameless
the wharves the cities the schools the scrap yards
the bakers the carpenters the inn-keepers
the cooks the caretakers the translators
the singers the painters the undocumented
the fathers the mothers the insane the old people the orphans
we help each other out we invent we grow up we dance
we hope
once more
sometimes we sleep too long
or not long enough
we agree we protest
we repeat the words that haunt our legends
we unchain ourselves from violence
we offer complete silence to others
displaced in time
we defend ourselves against nonsense
sometimes we just look at each other and do nothing
…
Your language
is not the same as mine
my language
is still imprisoned
in a glass bubble
you force me
to unlearn to resolve to reduce myself
How will I find myself ?
you take hold my territory
from underneath
and you don’t even
speak to me
or look at me
Will we ever be able
to come together ?
even though you can barely understand me
you give me
so many reasons to write
Should we not
stand strong together
like trees ?
…
Memory woman
horizon woman
torrent woman
your North
reaches up to my land
we are all the same
just a few plant names apart
urban harvests dictated by our exile
you tell me
come die in my rivers do not be afraid
I come to you
my words under a light veil you listen to me
in your dream catcher
you trap them all
you take everything from me
you ask me again
Haven’t you learned my language yet ?
I think of our ancestors
blended together
still inhabiting this country
like poets
I want to think
that we are all
wild
the Earth humans wind riverbanks roses water salt dunes light forests
this place
your eyes rest on my body
you track me
as if it were
hunting season
only then
do I know you respect me
I braid my lichen dreams back into my hair
I kindle the rocks of the world once again
Brigitte Lavallée
Published in No 17. Creating Community
