Marianne Moore Water Poems
- 1. The Steeple-jack
Dürer would have seen a reason for living
in a town like this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
... - 2. No Swan So Fine
"No water so still as the
dead fountains of Versailles." No swan,
with swart blind look askance
and gondoliering legs, so fine
... - 3. The Fish
wade
through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
adjusting the ash-heaps;
... - 4. Marriage
This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
... - 5. An Octopus
of ice. Deceptively reserved and flat,
it lies “in grandeur and in mass”
beneath a sea of shifting snow-dunes;
dots of cyclamen-red and maroon on its clearly defined
... - 6. A Grave
Man looking into the sea,
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as
you have to it yourself,
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing,
...
