Canada is a fragile cliff,

where the snow twists up the edge of its foam,

like a climbing vine sculpting its flour

over the goodness of the great land.

All the chlorophyll, with its green staircase,

like an emerald that remains at a distance,

and the ivory arriving with its revolving teeth

to direct the confidential formation of the day.

The light elevates my smile.

I love the solitude of this land,

its silence of a yellow cathedral

storing in its broken wintry throat

an elastic drum of stone and dust;

it adds to my origin of clay

the peace that, for a moment, I had overlooked.

I am free within its soft white poncho,

and I dream of its horizon that threshes itself,

forgetting the frontier that dangles in the rain.

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Letelier, Elias. Silence. Trans. Ken Norris. Montréal: The Muses Co., 1992.

ISBN 0919754-41-6  &  ISBN 0919754-41-4  < http://www.letelier.org >