Before Spring, Montreal: Selected Essays: Biblioasis International Translation Series

Telephone wires, dark as a line in a schoolboy's notebook against the dawn; paint flakes from houses drifting down like dust; the hulking shadow of a desk that emerges, stock-still as a cow, in the moment of waking. Join poet Robert Melançon for a quiet celebration of his city, its inhabitants, and the language that gives it life.
From "Eden":
You go forth drunk on
the multitudes, drunk
on everything, while
the lampposts sprinkle
nodding streets with stars.
Robert Melançon, former poetry columnist for Le Devoir is a recipient of the Governor General's Award, the Prix Victor-Barbeau, and the Prix Alain-Grandbois.