Honors in Creative Writing
Co-winner – Edwin L. Shuman Award for Best Honors Thesis in Creative Writing
An excerpt from
The End (A Golden Shovel)
I did not mention Scylla, since she meant inevitable death
-Homer’s Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson
December, 1922: Galle
I remember when.
It was after Christmas. We weren’t exactly rosy,
We chewed on walrus skin, tough and rubbery and fingered
On the fins. Downright inedible, I’d say. Come dawn,
I was real hungry. Of course, I came
North knowing stories, but boy, I sure felt bright
And Christmas-y and
Whatnot waking up that early.
I was cracking open the hardtack box just as
The north wall of our snow house blew off, heavy ice balls and all, and they
Tumbled straight off the island, I swear, yoked
To the winds of Aeolus or something and the
Dogs howled their furs off. Hit their kennels. Galloping horses
The books were, to
Charge some poor snow ghosts out there and the
Others were straight shook awake, even Ada, painted
Blue by the blitz of wind. No one could really move, like a carriage
On our chests. And
We crawled and barely drove
Through the ice in our undershirts, trying to stack a wall. Out
Of that Christmas, I knew from
Then, we were slapped to the
Cliff of choice, a rocky gate
Of the end, and
Then we dreamed of food across the sea, and I heard the ocean echoing
Like the Fourth of July cannons on a summer day porch.
January, 1923: Crawford
Solemnly, we pack the sled at negative fifty-six degrees, as if
We will return. Pens, papers, our journals, our maps of Wrangel, and then some.
Galle leaves his typewriter. Maurer prays to his Christian Science god.
In front of us, red strikes
The horizon, the first sunrise in months. Abide with me,
Ada sings, I need thy presence every passing hour. She carries on,
Lugging a box of hardtack, The–
Soon, we’ll be at home, dining and drinking wine.
Tomorrow, Galle and Maurer and I will start in the dark
And walk to Siberia, then Nome. Only eighty days on frozen sea,
I repeat, my gloves stiff on my ice-black fingers, I
Unload the sled, Galle tends the dogs, Maurer builds the igloo. Knight says, You will
Be fine. I nod. We endure
A silence. And lay in it.
February, 1923: Maurer
We’re here and there
It’s hard to remember what is
What I am a
Pause and then time
Headed for
So many
Turns tales
I wanted to tell you but
Who was it for also
I mustn’t drown a
It’s quite warm I had no time
Once for
Sleep