Part II

October 1970

OCTOBER

    I will join my burning companions whose struggle

    breaks and shares the bread of our common lot

    in the quicksand huddles of grief

    we will make you, Land of Quebec

    a bed of resurrections

    and a thousand lightning metamorphoses

    of our leavens from which the future shall rise

    and of our wills which will concede nothing

    men shall hear your pulse beating through history

    this is us winding through the October autumn

    the russet sound of roe-deer in the sunlight

    this is our future, clear and committed

GASTON MIRON, TRANSLATION BY D. J. JONES AND MARC PLOURDE