I.
I Met Elizabeth Bishop's Moose
I met that moose! Or one of its kind,
Though hers came wreathed in dignity, whereas mine
-- though it too emerged
From the New England woods --
was otherwise quite different
it bolted out of
Someplace in New Hampshire and I
Was in a small blue car and talking
With a friend spilling
Half a remaining coffee cup and I had to
Spin the wheel and the tires and go
Saw it come out of the woods galloping fast
Right across our path
and, isn’t it amazing? I
Know that we would have died
Give or take a couple feet – me! A rare privilege in my
Quiet life
To nearly die – an
Unexpected source of interest, and my
Friend tells me that first I cried
“Jesus Christ!” not expecting
Much aid from that quarter –more a kind
Of final imprecation in case there was any line
Left on my ledger
Counting against my damnation, I had
To be clear on whose side
I would stand at the final day, or maybe it was
A refusal to hedge any bets, and that a saving and forgiving God, if any such there be,
would have to take me unrepentant, hating Him, loving me – and
Then I said something else I said – but wait,
Let me mention first that my
Friend and I
Had been talking all through Vermont about
The moose we hadn’t seen
and what
Might or might not happen should one
Appear before our windscreen
What I said to my friend just then
In that less than half one second, I said:
“It’s actually happening!”
It being the much-discussed moose splatter, and I suppose
That is what death will be like when it comes, for real,
“It’s actually happening!” I am
reminded of three times in my life – one that came
On a hot afternoon, dri-
ving down a crowded road,
and nearing a red light; another was in bed one night;
and a final
in the shower, which I was taking late –
When it suddenly seemed to come plain to me
That death would cancel everything out
when it came
And that everything that Qoholeth said,
Had everything up on every
Other worldview, and that
Proposals having to do
With the importance of, say, “good deeds living after one” (assuming I've done any)
Were but a wispy flower in the wind, when one
Considered that one wouldn’t be there
To ken whether they were living on or not, and for
The rest of the theories (personal immortality, e.g.), they simply are not
true
“Even their memories are lost to them!”
Having got that far, I caught
An arid smell in my throat, I thought
That I would have to find a way out
– but see
There never is a means
of escape from under truths
Once seen – why should there be? –
But then –
nothing came
Along at that or any other point to say
That the good deeds living on and such,
Was any less real either, it grew
None the less true
For my being present there or not –
the question that my Qoholeth moment, I guess, forgot
or failed to answer was
Why should one be there
Or why should one care
When to the past one grants one’s non-existence,
It seems only fair
That the future one’s inestimable presence
One will also one day spare
And wasn’t there
in that cry –
“It’s actually happening!” something more than mere
Unpunctuated fear? Was there not
As well a spot
Of rushing familiarity? That thing
So long imagined, that object of our
Most flattering
and unfaltering curiosity – in one’s grasp at last, je t’aime!
Ah, so this is what it’s like! one will think. And seeing that
Everything else in life has always been
so much more possible in the doing than in the fearing – one feels
One will slip into non-being so gratefully knowing
That the being was real; and so is the going
To where and what one already was – a dot
Of uncomprehending miles with no
Way of knowing why or where
Or reason for its going there, or way
Of asking any such questions.
Anyway, I guess you could say,
I met that moose.
II.
When I heard about the sister who had died
In the desert and whose brother had tried
Not to leave her but had been
Deported back to Mexico and who cried
Out that he would one day come back to find
Her body but he couldn’t because he was on the wrong
Border side, I think I filed
It away in my mind, under closing arguments for use
In partisan debate until I was dri-
ving in my car and heard
A lot of words and talking and I
Noticed the rain and couldn’t
Understand and in my
Muscles there was a kind
Of limpness and in my eyes
-- I
Turned on and off the radio thinking
“What is wrong with me tonight?” and then I realized
That this is what is known as an emotional response and I
Felt a cough of sobs be released, almost gratefully,
Through my nose and stings
In both my eyes and I
Had a sense I can scarce describe
A glimpse of
The people who already died and who
I will never no matter how long I live
Live beside
And how anything one could do from now
on
Could not bring back the days
Of, let’s say, the Postville raid,
Or any others in which
One might have played
A different part from the one
one did – which was none –
not even that of the disapproving observer
And maybe one can make, can do one’s part for,
A different future, and one more kind,
but it will be for oneself, and not the one
For whom they did not come in time.
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