Sylvie Poisson : Seven Poems from Les rives accordées (Attuned River), translated by Jérôme Melançon

 

 

 

here it is, the day

I give back to the earth
what I have pruned from my life 

it takes my brambles and my thorns

with its tender patience

knowingly to transform them

I am woven

with cycles

*

I have poured tears
into the secret
the pain of the plunder reaching through

the depths of my stomach
docile to laws
that came quite close to having me skinned

I had no words for revolt

nor for non-submissiveness

I scratched at the ground to find my anger
the only answer
mixed with my fearfulness

an immense sadness

*

I would have liked a season yet to come

the abandon of a fountain
at dusk 

I would have liked

to light up patience
in the fires
of fall

*

I am often only a stranger 

I take so many steps far from me

I scatter my soul
into the world
the impression that I die
every time 

I wish for a dawn that rekindles my eyes

and this water that washes
and this water that saves 

* 

motionless

the clamour floods me
my colours mixed with those of the world 

in the distance I know new spaces

I stay
to draw from my roots
the strength essential to leavings

I watch for the breeze

that will unfold the horizon
and my wings 

a breath is calling me

to dare my skies

* 

maybe the sky of our fleshes

speaks of grace

maybe love

is a wide river
that joins with our shores
 

*

for the continuity of the time
that I do intend on writing

with you
I will craft a path
with the few pebbles
resting in my pockets
I’ll also put down some shells
some feathers and my smiles 

we’ll walk toward us two
on this path
that will have for a name

yours and mine blended

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sylvie Poisson has had a passion for words since childhood, where a part of her still resides. She has collaborated to a few literary reviews, including Osiris, and to many collective publications. With Écrits d’à côté, she has published Les clartés offertes in 2013 and Les rives accordées in 2018. Her third collection is slowly taking shape. She regularly takes part in various poetry events, including the Festival international de la poésie de Trois-Rivières. In another life, she has been a pediatric occupational therapist and a volunteer in international collaboration in Bolivia. She lives in Trois-Rivières, in Québec.

 

Jérôme Melançon writes and teaches and writes and lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, SK. He occasionally and increasingly often translates between French and English. He read five of these translations of Sylvie Poisson’s poems as part of the 2022 Festival international de la poésie de Trois-Rivières. His most recent chapbook is with above/ground press, Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (2022, after 2020’s Coup), and his most recent poetry collection is En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021). He has edited books and journal issues, and keeps publishing academic articles that have nothing to do with any of this. On Twitter and Instagram, he is at @lethejerome.