Poem: “Adirondack Moosehead” by Jeffrey Harrison

Adirondack Moosehead

by Jeffrey Harrison

The moose that once presided over games
of Monopoly and crazy eights,
that loomed above us, goofy and majestic,
into whose antlers we threw paper planes,
still hangs over the great stone fireplace
like the figurehead of a ship.

All these years he hasn’t flicked an eyelash
in response to anything we’ve done,
and in that way resembles God,
whom, as children, we imagined looking down
but didn’t know how to visualize. A moose
over the alter would have been

as good as anything — better than a cross — 
staring down on us with kind dark eyes
that would have seemed, at least, to understand,
his antlers like gigantic upturned hands
ready to lift us off the ground — 
or like enormous wings outspread for flight.

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