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Alden Nowlan - The Bull Moose
Work rating: Medium

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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