Marianne Moore

Those various sounds, consistently indistinct, like intermingled echoes struck from thin glasses successively at random— the inflection disguised: your hair, the tails of two fighting-cocks head to head in stone— like sculptured scimitars repeating the curve of your ears in reverse order: your eyes, flowers of ice and snow sown by tearing winds on the cordage of disabled ships: your raised hand an ambiguous signature: your cheeks, those rosettes of blood on the stone floors of French châteaux, with regard to which the guides are so affirmative— your other hand a bundle of lances all alike, partly hid by emeralds from Persia and the fractional magnificence of Florentine goldwork—a collection of little objects— sapphires set with emeralds, and pearls with a moonstone, made fine with enamel in gray, yellow, and dragonfly blue; a lemon, a pear and three bunches of grapes, tied with silver: your dress, a magnificent square cathedral tower of uniform and at the same time diverse appearance—a species of vertical vineyard, rustling in the storm of conventional opinion—are they weapons or scalpels? Whetted to brilliance by the hard majesty of that sophistication which is superior to opportunity, these things are rich instruments with which to experiment. But why dissect destiny with instruments more highly specialized than the components of destiny itself?

Man, looking into the sea— taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself— it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing but you cannot stand in the middle of this: the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave. The firs stand in a procession—each with an emerald turkey-foot at the top— reserved as their contours, saying nothing; repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea; the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look. There are others besides you who have worn that look— whose expression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer investigate them for their bones have not lasted; men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are desecrating a grave, and row quickly away—the blades of the oars moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no such thing as death. The wrinkles progress upon themselves in a phalanx—beautiful under networks of foam, and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the seaweed; the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls as heretofore— the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion beneath them and the ocean, under the pulsation of light-houses and noise of bell-buoys, advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink— in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.

In speaking of ‘aspiration,’ From the recesses of a pen more dolorous than blackness itself, Were you presenting us with one more form of imperturbable French drollery, Or was it self directed banter? Habitual ennui Took from you, your invisible, hot helmet of anaemia— While you were filling your “little glass” from the decanter Of a transparent-murky, would-be-truthful “hobohemia”— And then facetiously Went off with it? Your soul’s supplanter, The spirit of good narrative, flatters you, convinced that in reporting briefly One choice incident, you have known beauty other than that of stys, on Which to fix your admiration. So far as the future is concerned, “Shall not one say, with the Russian philosopher, ‘How is one to know what one doesn’t know?’” So far as the present is concerned,

Openly, yes, With the naturalness Of the hippopotamus or the alligator When it climbs out on the bank to experience the Sun, I do these Things which I do, which please No one but myself.  Now I breathe and now I am sub- Merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object In view was a Renaissance; shall I say The contrary?  The sediment of the river which Encrusts my joints, makes me very gray but I am used To it, it may Remain there; do away With it and I am myself done away with, for the Patina of circumstance can but enrich what was There to begin With.  This elephant skin Which I inhabit, fibered over like the shell of The coco-nut, this piece of black glass through which no light Can filter—cut Into checkers by rut Upon rut of unpreventable experience— It is a manual for the peanut-tongued and the Hairy toed.  Black But beautiful, my back Is full of the history of power.  Of power?  What Is powerful and what is not?  My soul shall never Be cut into By a wooden spear; through- Out childhood to the present time, the unity of Life and death has been expressed by the circumference Described by my Trunk; nevertheless, I Perceive feats of strength to be inexplicable after All; and I am on my guard; external poise, it Has its centre Well nurtured—we know Where—in pride, but spiritual poise, it has its centre where ? My ears are sensitized to more than the sound of The wind.  I see And I hear, unlike the Wandlike body of which one hears so much, which was made To see and not to see; to hear and not to hear, That tree trunk without Roots, accustomed to shout Its own thoughts to itself like a shell, maintained intact By who knows what strange pressure of the  atmosphere; that Spiritual Brother to the coral Plant, absorbed into which, the equable sapphire light Becomes a nebulous green.  The I of each is to The I of each, A kind of fretful speech Which sets a limit on itself; the elephant is? Black earth preceded by a tendril?  It is to that Phenomenon The above formation, Translucent like the atmosphere—a cortex merely— That on which darts cannot strike decisively the first Time, a substance Needful as an instance Of the indestructibility of matter; it Has looked at the electricity and at the earth- Quake and is still Here; the name means thick.  Will Depth be depth, thick skin be thick, to one who can see no Beautiful element of unreason under it?