A Forgotten History

Good-bye, old Bishop Mountain, and hello
De la Montagne, and Édouard Montpetit.
We were a not-by-much minority
When I grew up in Montreal. Just so,
I duly learned the French tongue, blow by blow,
But by the time my Dad was forty-three
We’d gone: Saint Louis (no, not Saint Louis);
No more Duplessis and Jean Béliveau.

I try to manage without losing tact,
But I remember childhood, every day,
How I felt we had been driven away,
Though, as an Anglophone, I still react
To each cool reminder of the French fact.
Ici je vois une histoire oubliée.