Nanao in Newfoundland
Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland (Photo by Beth Leonard)
We were listening to the sound
The ice makes –
“too much!” says Nanao
We were listening to the sound
The wind makes,
Newfoundland west coast,
Green Garden trail a
Moose at every turn –
Making the miso soup
Nanao says
“I go crazy for potato!”
We are far away
From the world –
Anything is possible –
Ice and wind,
Caribou.
Moose.
Twillingate, Newfoundland (Photo by Beth Leonard)
Caribouddhism
I
The iceberg has come
To speak with Nanao.
She is just beyond the window,
Waiting beyond the light.
She has come a long way.
She has a message for us.
She is very shy.
If we look directly at her
She begins to melt away,
All that she
has to say, lost
to the light of
day, the wind, the
rocks, our eyes –
She begins to speak.
We must listen
Very carefully.
2
Tonight she comes as moose,
No longer iceberg,
Tiptoeing carefully,
Between the tents.
She is happy in darkness.
She is looking for Nanao.
She wants to enter his dreams.
3
Today she is standing
Beside the road
In a patch of bog and
Dirty snow.
She is the color of glacier,
Iceberg, snow and
Light.
She turns and
Disappears,
Into the woods.
She is caribou.
She is iceberg.
She is message,
And dream.
Twillingate/Terra Nova/Gros Morne
Newfoundland
Letter from Nanao
Poems by Gary Lawless
Photos by Beth Leonard
Letter from Nanao
Thank you to the caribou, to the ice.
Gary Lawless is a poet, bioregional advocate, and co-founder of Gulf of Maine Books, in Brunswick Maine.
He and his wife Beth Leonard care-take the old farm of Henry Beston & Elizabeth Coatsworth (both acclaimed authors of the mid-20th century), near Damariscotta Lake.
Gary’s score of poetry collections includes Poems for the Wild Earth and Caribou Planet. His new book of poems is How the Stones Came to Venice, and his poetry blog.