How does the author use imagery in the novel, To the White Sea?

One technique that adds to the richness of the novel stems from Dickey's skill as a poet. Passages of To the White Sea are lyrical. The prose is poetic in its imagery and energy, as in this example, one of many when Muldrow describes light: "The sun on top of water is one thing, but sun in it — down somewhere under the surface where it makes a kind of a box shape, you could say, a box that changes, that goes in and out like it's breathing — that's something else again, I'll tell you."