To a Moose
I’ve learned something about you! It is that
you eat but moss and mushrooms to grow strong.
But that’s not true. I’ve used many a chat
to tell a lie that no-one said was wrong.
I thought it true. It made you seem far more
the mystic forest-beast we think you are.
But when I set to settle, here, the score,
I find that I have traveled very far
from truth. For though you do partake in these,
you are, as creatures go, just as the rest.
You eat whate’er your clove-hooved stomach sees
as edible, and take whate’er is best.
Even the mythic moose will eat the fare
his cousins eat: whatever Earth will share.