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| The Poetry of Nicholas Hancock The Poet of Despair Published by The British Hancock Society with the permission of the author. |
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| DRIFTING SNOW ON THE GULF OF ST LAWRENCE It was deep winter on the Gulf, temperatures plunging far below. Looking across from Sam's fish stage, you couldn't see the men for snow, oilskinned among their distant nets, firing at surfacing heads of seals which swallowed air. A drift of snow moved ever north across the ice that paved the strait between the cliffs - Fox and Gull Islands whited out. It drifted on to open sea, a dune of white whose crystal skin coldly refused to coalesce. Beyond the dune the Bobbitts rowed, making towards the seals. The ice creaked on the rowlocks. Nelson's flask emerged and rowers paused a while to rest and gulp down alcohol. Another seal gulped air; a round sang through its brain, thus making air unneedful. Still the drift flew north towards the sea. Back home, Mum called: 'Wilson, go take your dad his lunch.' He roughly pulled the starter cord and the Skidoo fired straight away. 'Give it here, Mum.' He zipped the lunch under his parka, roared away. Heading towards the drift, he felt the wind increase. Fox Island now vanished: the blind-out hid its curve; in white amnesia Gull forgot where it had been. Now Wilson revved: the engine laughed above the wind. Faster than he had thought, the drift, rolling away, was not where he recalled. Once there he climbed at speed. Cresting, he felt the snow dip down; the wind just then began to drop. Wilson glimpsed water up ahead; the sealers saw him too and cried as the Skidoo slipped in the sea. Switched on, the Bobbitts' Evinrude laboured to reach the ice's edge while the flood tide tugged Wilson back underneath the blue-green bank.
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