Nanabijou - March 19 2023

 

Nanabijou

March 19 2023

The Sleeping Giant

is a long peninsula

of steep rock and sturdy trees,

an island

of rugged wilderness.

From across the harbour

from a height of land

in a city park,

it resembles a man

lying on his back

out in Lake Superior.

Asleep

through every kind of weather

for untold millennia

unmoved.

Before the Europeans.

Before the passed-down legends.

Before any people at all

were here to see him.

Of course, when the angle changes

he disappears.

Like the cloud overhead

on this sunny day,

looking up

through the crisp clear air.

Where, for a minute or two

I see a unicorn, a little girl

a tattered teddy bear,

before they vanish

in the cool wind

gusting briskly off the lake.

This is how the brain

tries making sense;

seeing reflections of ourselves,

what we know

want

expect.

Breathing life

into everything we see,

animating the world

like bright-eyed fabulists.

Like the slumbering giant

who will still be lying there

motionless

dreaming who knows what,

after the city has returned to the forest

and no one's left

watching over him

in his long unbroken sleep.