The Moose

Bishop has dedicated this poem to Grace Bulmer Bowers, one of her maternal aunts. Bishop’s aunts Grace and Maude both became mother figures for Bishop when she moved in with them at the age of seven. “The Moose” was inspired by a bus ride that Bishop took from her aunts’ home in Nova Scotia to Boston when business in the city interrupted a family visit.

The poem opens with a description of the area where the journey begins in Nova Scotia, somewhere near the Bay of Fundy. The first several stanzas communicate the physical features of the area and the way of life of its inhabitants. The nostalgic and reflective tone accompanies a reverence for nature and the seemingly peaceful routine of daily life within these seaside provinces.

The third stanza, full of color, describes the sunsets and how they can look different depending on the tide at sunset. The soil in Nova Scotia is a reddish orange, and Bishop mentions this in the letter she wrote to fellow poet and mentor Marianne Moore about the trip that inspired “The Moose.” The light from the sun shines red on a full tide (Lines 13-15), but when the tide is out, the mud in the bay appears purple in the waning light (Line 17) with “burning rivulets” (Line 18) of water reflecting the red of the sunset.