Chapter 2 Summary

Cold Spring is a collection of poems with a couple of running themes. At the Fishhouses tells of a woman who sits with an old man in a fishhouse, despite the stench and early morning. The man was a friend of her grandfather's and one who has spent his entire life fighting against the sea, with codfish and herring and boats that bring the catch of the day to Nova Scotia.

The second poem, Cape Breton, reflects a time next to the shore with the auks and puffins staring out to sea. There are sheep nearby and sometimes the airplanes confuse and frighten them so that they actually walk off the edge of a cliff. Despite what people do every day, while they go to work and perform mundane tasks, the birds continue to sing, the mist follows the sea, and there remains...