BARRY CALLAGHAN

man of letters

BIOGRAPHY

MEDIA: POET

POET

HOME          AT A GLANCE          LIFE LINE          PUBLICATIONS & AWARDS          CRITICAL APPROACHES                             

Prologue

In this

land of eelgrass

and ice drifts and snow, how does a

man live through an endless winter of endless

nights, and how does he stay sane while sitting

squat hour after hour by a seal hole in the ice,

waiting for the snout of the seal, for the one heave

of the harpoon that he can make into the dark

water, and then groping in the water under the ice,

feeling for the dead bulk of the seal body, hauling

it home, the moment of triumph as brief as the

arctic summer in which the sun shines

all night, exhausting itself in a last

lunge against the dark

and then the cleft

of light

closes