The Lightkeeper's Song

We are members of Friends of Head Harbour Lightstation. We walk over and back from the light almost all year. As we do this we think of the lightkeepers of the past and how they managed to work and live at the lighthouse.

This is a wonderful Nancy Neilson poem. It fits our situation so well- I added photos. I like to call it "The Lightkeepers Song.", but the real title is " High Tide, New Moon" .


High Tide, New Moon     by    Nancy Neilson    

Home lies on the far side
of the whale songs, on the far shore
of the Labrador waters.

This is the road home,

but this is the sea:

we are on the far shore

of the land of bed and teakettle,

and our feet are washed by the herring

of the one sea.

We must wait here and home is on the far side.

Down the road that sways with the stroke of great flippers
across the mewing of seals



We must wait, and when we do go, at last,
through the waters,
we know that our home is an island, part of the one sea:

That we are washed by the blood of seals.
That the great whales sway with our passing,
and the moon.




When we are home, the door swings inward
on bed, and teakettle

and outward to the one sea.

                                                                                                                                                              photo by Danielle Dion


http://www.flickr.com/photos/headharbourlight/3871922677/     watch the whales