The Moose Poem by Lyndsay Ayliffe

PEOPLE COME HERE TO LET GO/PEOPLE COME HERE TO GROW - I believe both things happen in this poem. There is a connection here: to grow you have to let go of things which might block growth. You let the reader find this truth for her/himself. You focus your words on the moose, and make its presence felt as a special mystery which doesn't need further words. It just is, and then it isn't. The fleeting quality of experience is affirmed. Catch it on the spur!

I like your rhyming in this poem. The interlocking rhymes pull the poem together. I've never used rhyme; I'm scared of it because I think it will reduce the scope of my poem, but instead I find in your poem it seems to bring everything to a common center. I like the way you let this animal live his animal life in your poem. You don't treat him as a performer doing tricks for us humans. His life has integrity and fullness in your poem. When I reread your poem the fourth line really struck me. That's what your poem does: it makes us grow larger inside because we have made a silent contact with OTHERNESS - the sky, the moose, the day itself.