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 

• Suicide Off Egg Rock by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Stars Over The Dordogne by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Sonnet: To Time by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Sonnet To Satan by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Sonnet : To Eva by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Song For A Summer’s Day by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Song For A Revolutionary Love by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Soliloquy Of The Solipsist by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Sleep In The Mojave Desert by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Sheep In Fog by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Prologue To Spring by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Poppies In October by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Poppies In July by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Polly’s Tree by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• On The Plethora Of Dryads by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• On The Difficulty Of Conjuring Up A Dryad by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• On The Decline Of Oracles by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• On Looking Into The Eyes Of A Demon Lover by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• On Deck by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath

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Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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