The Bull Moose

Down from the purple mist of trees on the mountain,

lurching through forests of white spruce and cedar,

stumbling through tamarack swamps,

came the bull moose

to be stopped at last by a pole-fenced pasture.

Too tired to turn or, perhaps, aware

there was no place left to go, he stood with the cattle.

They, scenting the musk of death, seeing his great head

like the ritual mask of a blood god, moved to the other end

of the field, and waited.

The neighbours heard of it, and by afternoon

cars lined the road. The children teased him

with alder switches and he gazed at them

like an old, tolerant collie. The woman asked

if he could have escaped from a Fair.

The oldest man in the parish remembered seeing

a gelded moose yoked with an ox for plowing.

The young men snickered and tried to pour beer

down his throat, while their girl friends took their pictures.

And the bull moose let them stroke his tick-ravaged flanks,

let them pry open his jaws with bottles, let a giggling girl

plant a little purple cap

of thistles on his head.

When the wardens came, everyone agreed it was a shame

to shoot anything so shaggy and cuddlesome.

He looked like the kind of pet

women put to bed with their sons.

So they held their fire. But just as the sun dropped in the river

the bull moose gathered his strength

like a scaffolded king, straightened and lifted his horns

so that even the wardens backed away as they raised their rifles.

When he roared, people ran to their cars. All the young men

leaned on their automobile horns as he toppled.

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Poems in English 

• Autumn Leaves by Thomas J Camp by Poetry In English
• You by Thonda Sri Indrani by Poetry In English
• You Will Forget! by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• Written at Stonehenge by Thomas Warton by Poetry In English
• Words Of Love Forevermore by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• Why? by Tiffany Ann Monroe by Poetry In English
• While Summer Suns O’er the Gay Prospect Play’d by Thomas Warton by Poetry In English
• What Is Woman But A Song! by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• We are Africa by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon by Poetry In English
• Virgule by Thomas Lux by Poetry In English
• Verses on Sir Joshua Reynold’s Painted Window at New College, Oxford by Thomas Warton by Poetry In English
• Vagueness Petrified by Thonda Sri Indrani by Poetry In English
• Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw by Thomas Lux by Poetry In English
• Town Planning Agencies by Tilottama Chatterjee by Poetry In English
• Torn Shades by Thomas Lux by Poetry In English
• The Road That Runs Beside The River by Thomas Lux by Poetry In English
• The Pulling Away by Timothy Cole by Poetry In English
• The Pleasures of Melancholy by Thomas Warton by Poetry In English
• The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball by Thomas Lux by Poetry In English
• The Mocking Bird by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English

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