by Norman Dubie

    Here， on the farthest point of the peninsula

    The winter storm

    Off the Atlantic shook the schoolhouse.

    Mrs. Whitimore， dying

    Of tuberculosis¹， said it would be after dark

    Before the snowplow and bus would reach us.

    She read to us from Melville.

    How in an almost calamitous² moment

    Of sea hunting

    Some men in an open boat suddenly found themselves

    At the still and protected center

    Of a great herd³ of whales

    Where all the females floated on their sides

    While their young nursed there. The cold frightened whalers

    Just stared into what they allowed

    Was the ecstatic lapidary⁴ pond of a nursing cow's

    One visible eyeball.

    And they were at peace with themselves.

    Today I listened to a woman say

    That Melville might

    Be taught in the next decade. Another woman asked， "And why not？"

    The first responded， "Because there are

    No women in his one novel."

    And Mrs. Whitimore was now reading from the Psalms⁵.

    Coughing into her handkerchief. Snow above the windows.

    There was a blue light on her face， breasts and arms.

    Sometimes a whole civilization can be dying

    Peacefully in one young woman， in a small heated room

    With thirty children

    Rapt， confident and listening to the pure

    God rendering voice of a storm