RPO -- Sonnet L'Abbé : Referendum

Sonnet L'Abbé (1973-)

Referendum

with sincere apologies to Gilles Vigneault

1Of course, you want your country

2to be one long season,

3when snow hides the dark mud,

4when nothing moves and nothing grows,

5when the white sky and white land agree

6to dissolve the horizon à la lointaine, and one

7can judge no distances.

8The treachery of spring, when the land

9changes colours, the leaves are turncoats,

10and the rippling fields

11are stripped of their sheets

12and wait to be stained with seed.

13You are waiting for another winter,

14when the fleur-de-lys' white petals

15will cover the earth in a garden of snow,

16the cold air will remain cloudless,

17free of the visible breath of spoken h's,

18and your swallowed aspirations

19will take root in your body and grow

20out of your mouth, watered by a clean tongue.

21Ton pays est une frontière

22ineffaceable, une cicatrice dans la terre,

23dont la terre ne se gêne pas

24parce qu'elle est portée

25sous un manteau de castor, sous une ceinture

26flechée.

27Here, what have I proven? All depends

28on where you're coming from.

29My country is not your country of snow.

30Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est ma peau.

Notes

1] Gilles Vigneault (1928-), Quebecois poet and song-writer, whose song "Mon pays" (1965; `my country'), became a popular anthem in la belle province after it was commissioned by the National Film Board of Canada for Arthur Lamothe's film, La Neige a fondu sur la Manicouagan. The first lines of Vigneault's song are:

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon jardin ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine
Mon chemin ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige

("My country is not a country, it is the winter; my garden is not a garden, it is the plain; my road is not a road, it is the snow"). The song can be read as saying that Quebec is not an independent country but an assemblage of wintry landscapes. Sizable numbers of Quebecois have for nearly fifty years sought the independence of Quebec from Canada. The last provincial referendum, on sovereignty and possible partnership with the rest of Canada, lost by 50.58 % against to 49.42 % for.

6] à la lointaine: `to the far distance.'

9] If Quebec is truly winter, then what is it in spring?

14] fleur-de-lys: the provincial flower of Quebec.

17] spoken h's: one mark of an anglophone. Bill 101 ("Charte de la langue française"), passed by the provincial government of Quebec in 1977, proclaimed French the only official language. It forbade the use of English on advertising billboards and on signs for sizable businesses.

26] Ton pays est: `Your country is an indelible border, a scar on the earth that it wears without shame beneath beaver pelt and arrowed belt' (poet's translation). castor: Canada accepts the beaver as its national animal.

30] `My country, it is not a country, it's my skin.'

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Copyright © Sonnet L'Abbé 2006. Not to be republished without permission of the poet.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: A Strange Relief: Poems (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2001): 55-56.
First publication date: 2001
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2006
Recent editing: 1:2006/2/16*1:2006/2/16*1:2006/2/16

Other poems by Sonnet L'Abbé