A moose has come out of
the impenetrable wood
and stands there, looms, rather,
in the middle of the road.
It approaches; it sniffs at
the bus’s hot hood.
—Elizabeth Bishop

Looking back, I can’t remember how I got into a conversation about a moose with a complete stranger at my local grocery store.  We were both juggling an armful of stuff in the 15-items-or-less line and found ourselves comparing notes on the animals we had seen on trips to Yellowstone.  Elk, coyote, buffalo.  But it was the moose, she told me, that made her cry.

The Moose is a long poem, like the bus trip it describes, but it’s worth the journey through the stanzas for the reward at the end.