Of Politics & Art

Here, on the farthest point of the peninsulaThe winter stormOff the Atlantic shook the schoolhouse.Mrs. Whitimore, dyingOf tuberculosis, said it would be after darkBefore the snowplow and bus would reach us.She read to us from Melville.How in an almost calamitous momentOf sea huntingSome men in an open boat suddenly found themselvesAt the still and protected centerOf a great herd of whalesWhere