Love and a Dim Smell of Moose

Why, why do we feel (we all feel) this sweet sensation of joy?

Author

Robiny Jamerson
February 12, 2023

A Fluster of Loves

Three sides of the same (three-sided) coin:

  1. Love is Holding: See three women at a high top. Sweaters, and a round of grilled cheeses. We speak about love—its flusters of ways (Shouldn’t a pack of loves be a fluster, the way a pack of jaguars is a shadow?): App chats, French sinks, that which is ephemerally Hot. Sometimes, we speak well of love.

    Then we speak of babies: holding them, specifically. I speak of the little boy whose head found my lap last week while he was supposed to be napping. How his eyes were his whole head and they were blinking at me, and I immediately loved him entirely. My friend speaks of a stranger’s baby plopped into her arms over Christmas—the way the baby was then not a stranger, but a beloved. We speak of babies. How, when we are handed them, we do not drop them. Couldn’t we love everyone this obviously?

  2. Love is Holding: Someone I love asked me recently, “What if I disappoint you?” The image that came to mind was one of a womb. I wanted to say (I didn’t say): I fear you like a mother fears an unborn child. The child may kick, elbow, turn, but there is no real (final) hurt; the womb is made for said action. And yes—maybe there is a real, true threat somewhere in that metaphor. But we don’t think about it. And we’ll never plan on it. Sometimes my love’s like that. As long as you’re in it, I just don’t think you can hurt me.

  3. Love is Holding Still: I wrote a poem in college called “Hamilton, Massachusetts, Late October.” In it, a friend falls asleep on me. I like that maybe love is holding very still. Sometimes, I feel that New York is heartless. Sometimes, I imagine that the 6am subway is filled with people who have closed bedroom doors very slowly, very quietly, behind them.

This Sweet Sensation of Joy

Note: Yes, this one is long. But boy is it worth it. Before you begin to read, close your eyes. Imagine yourself in the middle of a cozy, quiet bus. You're leaving Canada; you're traveling South to Boston. Read it out loud if you can--perhaps to a loved one. Use these words to rock them, slowly, to sleep. You'll know when to wake up.

The Moose
Elizabeth Bishop

From the narrow provinces
of fish and bread and tea,
home of the long tides
where the bay leaves the sea
twice a day and takes
the herrings long rides,

where if the river
enters or retreats
in a wall of brown foam
depends on if it meets
the bay coming in,
the bay not at home;

where, silted red,
sometimes the sun sets
facing a red sea,
and others, veins the flats’
lavender, rich mud
in burning rivulets;

on red, gravelly roads,
down rows of sugar maples,
past clapboard farmhouses
and neat, clapboard churches,
bleached, ridged as clamshells,
past twin silver birches,

through late afternoon
a bus journeys west,
the windshield flashing pink,
pink glancing off of metal,
brushing the dented flank
of blue, beat-up enamel;

down hollows, up rises,
and waits, patient, while
a lone traveller gives
kisses and embraces
to seven relatives
and a collie supervises.

Goodbye to the elms,
to the farm, to the dog.
The bus starts. The light
grows richer; the fog,
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.

Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens’ feathers,
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;

the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
on the whitewashed fences;
bumblebees creep
inside the foxgloves,
and evening commences.

One stop at Bass River.
Then the Economies
Lower, Middle, Upper;
Five Islands, Five Houses,
where a woman shakes a tablecloth
out after supper.

A pale flickering. Gone.
The Tantramar marshes
and the smell of salt hay.
An iron bridge trembles
and a loose plank rattles
but doesn’t give way.

On the left, a red light
swims through the dark:
a ship’s port lantern.
Two rubber boots show,
illuminated, solemn.
A dog gives one bark.

A woman climbs in
with two market bags,
brisk, freckled, elderly.
“A grand night. Yes, sir,
all the way to Boston.”
She regards us amicably.

Moonlight as we enter
the New Brunswick woods,
hairy, scratchy, splintery;
moonlight and mist
caught in them like lamb’s wool
on bushes in a pasture.

The passengers lie back.
Snores. Some long sighs.
A dreamy divagation
begins in the night,
a gentle, auditory,
slow hallucination. . . .

In the creakings and noises,
an old conversation
—not concerning us,
but recognizable, somewhere,
back in the bus:
Grandparents’ voices

uninterruptedly
talking, in Eternity:
names being mentioned,
things cleared up finally;
what he said, what she said,
who got pensioned;

deaths, deaths and sicknesses;
the year he remarried;
the year (something) happened.
She died in childbirth.
That was the son lost
when the schooner foundered.

He took to drink. Yes.
She went to the bad.
When Amos began to pray
even in the store and
finally the family had
to put him away.

“Yes . . .” that peculiar
affirmative. “Yes . . .”
A sharp, indrawn breath,
half groan, half acceptance,
that means “Life’s like that.
We know it (also death).”

Talking the way they talked
in the old featherbed,
peacefully, on and on,
dim lamplight in the hall,
down in the kitchen, the dog
tucked in her shawl.

Now, it’s all right now
even to fall asleep
just as on all those nights.
—Suddenly the bus driver
stops with a jolt,
turns off his lights.

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.

Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man’s voice assures us
“Perfectly harmless. . . .”

Some of the passengers
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
“Sure are big creatures.”
“It’s awful plain.”
“Look! It’s a she!”

Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
sensation of joy?

“Curious creatures,”
says our quiet driver,
rolling his r’s.
“Look at that, would you.”
Then he shifts gears.
For a moment longer,

by craning backward,
the moose can be seen
on the moonlit macadam;
then there’s a dim
smell of moose, an acrid
smell of gasoline.

Thoughts

While I was getting my MFA, I spent an afternoon memorizing this poem. I held my Bishop anthology in front of me as I lapped the reservoir in Central Park, working backwards stanza by stanza. Over time, I developed a feel for the sequence of the poem: Get on the bus. Watch the world whoosh by in vignettes. Let the dark take over, let the passengers gather. Hear the murmurs of an old love. And finally: the moose. Over and over, I would wander through this story, shifting slowly from the brightly observed to the mysteriously felt.

It's a beautiful sequence, and Bishop treats it with immense delicacy. For most of this poem, the speaker is a transparency, clear as the bus window, never trying to place herself between the reader and the object of view. (It's not "I see the foxgloves," it's "foxgloves.") The dialogue also requires no mediator, as the narration drifts gently between quoted language and description. Slowly, we're lulled into this state with her: we are, ourselves, permeated by the scenes. (You're there, aren't you? Smell the polyester seats. Hear the voices that rumble beneath the motor, then crest occasionally into words and ideas. Feel yourself incline toward the sips of conversation, then let them go.) It's not until the moose arrives that we see the speaker, and even then, dissolved: the "we" in "we all feel."

Sure, this isn't a typical Valentine's Day poem. But it is dense with love. Read the following lines and imagine each as its own version of a love story.

  • "An iron bridge trembles and a loose plank rattles but doesn’t give way."

  • "A lone traveller gives kisses and embraces to seven relatives"

  • "a collie supervises."

  • "Five Houses, where a woman shakes a tablecloth out after supper. A pale flickering. Gone."

  • "A dog gives one bark."

  • "She regards us amicably."

  • "She went to the bad."

Then, of course, the primary love story: "Grandparents' voices uninterruptedly talking, in Eternity." Like the trek of the bus, the couple commences on roving conversation. Just as two rubber boots illumine, then disappear, so does the concept of "He took to drink" flash before us, then fade.

This, to Bishop, seems to be love. A journey of little flashes, stories. One bark. Two boots. One tablecloth. A bee in a foxglove. That friend. This pension. All slowly moving through time and space from departure to arrival, until we can fall asleep.

And occasionally mixed in: wonder.

"Why, why do we feel / (we all feel) this sweet / sensation of joy?" Isn't that love? A baby has just been placed on your lap. A moose has just emerged from the quiet woods. You haven't had time to think. But you are suddenly still, and the moment is made of glass, and you love.

Then continue on.

For All Your Loving Needs

Need to zhuzh up a Valentine’s Day card or comfort a broken-heart? Here’s a tasting menu of some wonderful love poems: (Don’t miss the Tsvetaeva.)

Love Story of the Week:

Bar Patron: "Well, the reason he was cheating on her was because he had been possessed by a demon. It was the demon who wanted to have sex with all these people. Not him."

"Is she still with him?"

"Yeah. He's trying to get it exorcised."

A Writing Prompt: Turtle Tears

  • We are blessed to live in a world where butterflies drink turtle tears. For this, we should be endlessly grateful.

  • Write a poem where you are either explicitly or emotionally that turtle. Somewhere in the poem, become the butterfly.

Have a joyful, tearful, tender Valentine's Day. Love your loved ones today. Tell them it's okay to fall asleep. Maybe even forward them this newsletter and tell them to subscribe to it.

I so enjoyed reading all of your responses last week! Keep them coming, friends/aunts.

Wishing you the smell of moose,

Robiny

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Croissant of the Week:

La Moulin à Café, UES

  • Freshness: 10

  • External Texture: 7

  • Internal Texture: 9

  • Flavor: 8

  • Overall: 8.5