Imagine you're swimming... in freezing water... dressed in a tuxedo. And you're being chased by a ravenous, thousand pound carnivorous seal. Ok, you're not really wearing a tuxedo, but your plumage could pass for one. You're swimming as fast as you can, almost out of breath, hurtling toward the shore with doom at your back door. Or, imagine that you're standing outside, it's forty below zero, the wind is howling, and you and your partner decide it's the perfect moment to mate. Or, imagine you haven't eaten in over a month but the nearest meal is a week's walk away... over ice... and you lack opposable thumbs. Such drama is worthy of an epic poem. Written for the child with an appetite for vocabulary, and the adult with an appetite for poetry that rhymes at any cost, this poem tells the tale of one of the most amazing creatures on earth.


Jed Irvine writes software for a living and writes stories, songs and poems when time allows. He lives with his family in the Willamette Valley in western Oregon, and loves being a Dad. Jed has played the drums since the ’70s, and is currently a member of the band The Flow. Other hobbies include birding, yard work, fighting household entropy, and taking napping lessons from the retired racing greyhound, Nephro.