From "Surveyor's Notebook: Summer 1969," Pierre Nepveu

I'm crossing a field that doesn't belong to me, measuring out clumps of condemned trees and tracing heart-breaking outlines as yet unseen by those who live here. When, a surgeon without a scalpel, I walk away through the long leafy shadows, with the light itself stretched tight enough to strum the nerve cords, down my back I sense the looks that kill. I've hiked down into the shelter of a valley and I pause, uncertain, among sandy hillocks, listening under the evening clouds to hear where the first distress calls will come from. Silent and small as a star, a plane passes over and I watch its vapour trail striping the sky, chalky like a child's drawing. Up there, strangers are travelling. One day, my friends, their hordes will descend amongst you. I'm still alone as I tramp towards the motel that awaits me for the night, an unknown traveller prepared to leave his sadness on the doorstep, dreaming of the dry quiet of barns filled with hay and flies.

From Mirabel, translated by Judith Cowan. This poetic consideration of the construction of the Mirabel airport in Montreal won the Governor General's Award in 2003, the third time Nepveu has been so honored since 1997. The book is published by Signal Editions, the poetry arm of Canada's Vehicule Press.