Rete Mirabile

142 JOAN NAVIYUK KANE RETE MIRABILE After Katexac A large many-storied institution looming always, gabled trinity of windows jut from its thin skull. Ribs of the skin boats, visible—not their doubleseamed stitches, pulled taut without piercing through the walrus hides. The men have retrieved a bowhead dead or killed it outright. None of their faces ever fully legible. It takes a pair to hoist the tail, another three grapple with a fin (pectoral). * The distinction between the ocean’s blue & the whale’s blue a matter of shades. The rocks that form the foundation of the undiminishable church echo the repetition of the rows of baleen in the whale’s mouth. * Limb and fissure, plywood and driftwood, gouged withal— Brayer to bone and back again. * The danger of breaking ice, the boat’s keel. Far off she had harvested the stalk long before its bloom. * 143 On the strand between the buildings and the water’s edge, a man and woman. Perhaps a priest. Perhaps an elder. Perhaps a printmaker. Perhaps one without allies. The man wears a collared shirt in large plaid, trousers, and an eight-panel cap; his garments differ from the white hunting parka of a man in his prime. He is carrying a bucket. The woman could be old or young. Her hair is covered with a scarf folded triangularly; she wears an atikluk. Both are walking away, upslope. * The lines are thick and distinct except when shapes and their suggestions smudge with imprecision, incomplete either by chance of production or design. * The only human figure whose hands are empty is the woman, mid-stride. She is the wife of one of the hunters and the beloved (former?) of another. Of course this woman’s hands hold no implements. * A pile of rock holds the land securely from the sea— a terminus, a vantage, a venture. A rope twined below a prominent cliff. Here we must sing before we continue. ...