The mother seals arrive in May, plump with a layer of blubber. Hauling onto the bergs, they find a refuge from the omnipotent stare of marauding killer whales. Like overripe bananas, life-sustaining heat is preserved by pointing toes and whiskers skyward. The calling card of birth is a rusty red berg, bearing witness to pups first glimpse of this world. For two new moons, the young snuggle close, finding the gift of life in warm milk.
This is a topsy-turvy world, where the shifting of icebergs brings an untimely dunk into a silty sea. They are on their own, where the only answer to their plaintiff cries is silence. Like their unfathomable evolutionary past, the milky waters conceal the pups' first journey to the open sea. One day they will return to the ice face, to complete this cycle of life.
