The moose doesn’t mind the winter.

He perceives the frost and snowy boughs

without comment, without bitterness,

though snow encrusts his antlers.

A tremor shakes his flanks but he endures.

The world may be shagged with ice

but its glitters please the eye.

Yet the sun is an impostor

shining coldly in a cold sky.
The moose scuffs a pile of blue snow,

nibbles the branch of a pine tree.

His sound is the sound of the forest,

the sigh of the wind, a twig-snap,

an ice sheet crashing like a sidelight.

But the moose doesn’t flinch,

doesn’t see it as a rebuff to the day.
No, it will snow again, and he

will gather himself as the wolves

stream down from the snow-capped hills.