APRIL 10: Chantal Ringuet
Treelessness (an excerpt)
Go into the dawn
Where the border of the sky
lights your skin
Let the violet pigment
Guide the course
of silent doves
unifying your destiny
*
A torrential rain falls on Reykjavik
A torrential rain erases
The remnants of your scent on my skin
The traces of your body on mine
In the taxi
The windshield wipers beat to
The rhythm of the ride
On the radio
Familiar tunes conceal the void
Created by your mirror fugue
As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you nor will it ever
*
A torrential rain falls on Reykjavik
Let me speak this arborescent language
May all that is impossible quiet
In your branches and the grooves
Prayer poems
Whether fleeting or dead
In the battle
Through the windows, in the darkness
The children go, children go
Like arrows without targets
Like chains of snow
*
A torrential rain falls on Reykjavik
A torrential rain purifies
The echoes of your voice in my skin
The waves of you laugh on my neck
In the studio
My dresses all lined up
Crystallize desire
Last time I saw you
You were not wearing a raincoat
What were you going, that night,
To put on my frail shoulders?
Like a leaf falling may rest
For a moment in the air
So your head upon my chest
So my hand upon your hair
Chantal Ringuet, “Treelessness” (excerpt), translated by Marie Leconte.
Originally published in French in the collection of poetry Sans toi, jusqu’à la cime des arbres (Éditions L’Ail des ours, France, Automne 2025). In italics: an excerpt of Leonard Cohen’s poem “At the Mist Leaves no Scar.”
Chantal Ringuet is a writer, poet, and literary translator whose work lies at the intersection of literature, cultural archives, and research-creation. Through writing, translation, and textile practices, she explores landscapes and cities as layered spaces of memory, shaped by languages, migration, and often invisible narratives. Treelessness was written following a residency in Reykjavik, UNESCO City of Literature.