For Nanao

For Nanao


That time you came back
and told us
about meeting a Navajo woman
on the canyon's rim
you were happy and smiling.
You said, "We were talking,
smiling and gesturing to each."

Yes, Nanao,
you must have been truly.

The two languages,
Navajo and Japanese,
origins from the monumental age
of glacial Asia,
it is all true.

You must have been
mother and son then,
or sister and brother,
or lover and lover.

I can see you smiling,
remembering that time
in millennia. I can see
the lights in your eyes.


From Woven Stone by Simon Ortiz, Vol. 21, in Sun Tracks an American Indian Literary Series, The University of Arizona Press.
© 1992 Simon Ortiz