Je n’ai rien déposé
au pied du chêne rien
à l’ombre du saule
je ne me suis adressée ni aux faibles
ni aux puissants
je n’ai pas vu le veilleur
à l’entrée de la mer
pas vu le jardinier cueillir le crocus
d’un printemps
pas trouvé
le miel et la soie
pas vu le ciel dans l’étang
quelque chose de la solitude
rien
qui laisse paraître la déchirure
je me suis assise
au milieu de ces vastes alliés
sans voix
le temps continue
de s’infiltrer dans la terre
gorge les rochers
le pas des animaux
s’accorde à la lumière
par la lenteur du monde
je me laisse étreindre
je n’attends rien
de ce qui ne tremble pas
*
À la table du silence
je suis cette branche
qui avance comme va le vent
sans père ni mère
des années de nulle part
poussées vers demain
je suis cette ramille qui frémit
au bout du vide
trace un invisible chemin
vers l’horizon
chaque souffle
me dépouille d’un feuillage
me laisse vacante
comme la lumière qui va
elle aussi vers le soir
*
Parfois je sarcle le sol
arrache un peu d’herbe et de mousse
je laisse mes questions
se frayer un chemin
au-dessus du néant
elles flottent
recouvrent de froid la terre nue
et font le bruit du marcheur
qui approche
comme l’érable en feu
au bord de sa chute
*
Tu t’arrêtes
pour que traversent
à l’embranchement
les chagrins jamais avoués
de tant de visages
éparpillés parmi les heures
gestes et tâches
qui ensemencent nos vies
*
Il fait un temps d’insectes affairés
de chiffres et de lettres
qui s’emmêlent sur la terre souillée
un temps où soufflent des vagues
au-dessus des vagues
dans nos corps
il fait un temps d’arn
de ram zip et chus
sdf et vip
il fait triple k
usa made in China
un temps de ko
pour nos émerveillements
il fait casse-gueule
un bruit de ferraille
déchire le paysage
comme un vêtement usé
il fait refus et rejet
un temps de pixels d’algorithmes
qui nous projettent
sur des routes invisibles
avec l’avenir comme promesse
que le vent dévore aussitôt
un peu d’écorce et de feu
au creux de la main
il fait chimère
et rêve de rien du tout
un siècle de questions rudoyées
le bord d’une falaise
où chutent nos poèmes
et la neige
nous apprend à perdre
tout ce que l’on perdra
*
Je m’incline souvent
devant la figure unique
d’un jeu de feuilles et de branches
la maigre cicatrice de l’écorce
le nœud dans le bois dur
l’arbre n’échappe pas à sa souffrance
il n’est rien d’autre que lui-même
avec la longue respiration des saisons
il regarde par les yeux du vent
de ses racines
et de l’anneau des années
il ignore tout
et je m’incline encore
pour écouter son voyage immobile
de Mes Forêts
Hélène Dorion
Hélène Dorion began to write the poems in Mes forêts (My forests) some years ago, wanting to delve into the forest that surrounded her. In 2020, confined at home during the pandemic, she recognized that the trees’ immobility was taking root in us all. The poems are hymns of praise to the forest but also warnings of its fragility, which mirrors our collective fragility. I was drawn to these poems by the intimacy of her relationship with the forest, her grave concern for the earth, and the notes of hope that nonetheless permeate her work. I am fortunate that she collaborated with me through the translation process, answering all my questions and reading the drafts with care to suggest changes.
Her willingness to work with me was especially necessary for one of the poems in this group, “It is a time of busy insects . . . ” While the book is above all a celebration of forests, it is also a lament for what we have done to them, and how we have lost ourselves in losing our relationship with the natural world—and also with language. This poem uses abbreviations and acronyms to talk about the degradation of language, and refuses to capitalize them so they are not immediately recognizable even to a French reader. Some were easy to translate—RNA is the direct translation of ARN—but others were ambiguous. CHU is Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, and as close as I could come to what those are in Québec or France is Community Health Centers or CHCs, but Hélène wanted something shorter and didn’t care if the meaning was exact, so I switched to CDC, which everyone in America recognizes since the pandemic. SDF is sans domicile fixe so we would normally say homeless or unhoused, but there is an acronym for “people experiencing homelessness,” though I don’t think many Americans are familiar with it. I wasn’t sure whether “triple k” was KKK (Ku Klux Klan); it was, but Hélène said no one in Canada says “triple k” either. Yet that was what she wanted in the translation and in the end, it’s her poem. In other poems, she stepped back from a solution she preferred because she knows that I also write poetry in English and she has come to respect my judgment. Entering into a partnership like this is a large part of what makes translation rewarding for me.
Her willingness to work with me was especially necessary for one of the poems in this group, “It is a time of busy insects . . . ” While the book is above all a celebration of forests, it is also a lament for what we have done to them, and how we have lost ourselves in losing our relationship with the natural world—and also with language. This poem uses abbreviations and acronyms to talk about the degradation of language, and refuses to capitalize them so they are not immediately recognizable even to a French reader. Some were easy to translate—RNA is the direct translation of ARN—but others were ambiguous. CHU is Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, and as close as I could come to what those are in Québec or France is Community Health Centers or CHCs, but Hélène wanted something shorter and didn’t care if the meaning was exact, so I switched to CDC, which everyone in America recognizes since the pandemic. SDF is sans domicile fixe so we would normally say homeless or unhoused, but there is an acronym for “people experiencing homelessness,” though I don’t think many Americans are familiar with it. I wasn’t sure whether “triple k” was KKK (Ku Klux Klan); it was, but Hélène said no one in Canada says “triple k” either. Yet that was what she wanted in the translation and in the end, it’s her poem. In other poems, she stepped back from a solution she preferred because she knows that I also write poetry in English and she has come to respect my judgment. Entering into a partnership like this is a large part of what makes translation rewarding for me.
Hélène Dorion (b. 1958, Quebec) has published more than twenty books of poetry and fifteen artists’ books, in addition to works of fiction and memoir and a book-length essay on art and creation. Mes forêts (My Forests; Éditions Bruno Doucey, 2021), from which this selection is taken, is her most recent collection (Éditions Bruno Doucey, 2021) and is now part of the baccalaureate curriculum in France. She has earned Canada’s and Europe’s most prestigious prizes, including election to the Académie des Lettres du Québec, Chevalière de l’ordre national du Québec, and the European Prix Senghor. In 2005, she was the first Canadian to win the Prix Mallarmé, awarded for the entirety of her work. In 2022, the Opéra de Montréal and the Opéra de Québec performed Yourcenar – Une île de passions, an opera that Dorion wrote with Marie-Claire Blais, who died in 2021. Dorion’s work has been translated and published in fifteen countries.
Susanna Lang has translated Yves Bonnefoy’s Words in Stone (University of Massachusetts Press, 1976) and Nohad Salameh’s Baalbek (L'Atelier du Grand Tétras, 2021). Her translations of these and other French poets are published or forthcoming in Delos, The Literary Review, Transference, Another Chicago Magazine, Ezra, OOMPH!, Mayday, AzonaL, and Columbia Journal. Her third full-length collection of original poems, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published by Terrapin Books in 2017. Among Other Stones: Conversations with Yves Bonnefoy, an e-chapbook of original poems and translations, was published by Mudlark in summer 2021 and another chapbook, Like This, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Books. More information is available here.
