Poem of the Day

I was, of course, inspired by John Koethe’s poem to find something by Marianne Moore to post. It’s been a tough day and this one appealed to me because I could use a little fortitude.

Nevertheless
By Marianne Moore

you’ve seen a strawberry
that’s had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,

a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food

than apple seeds—the fruit
within the fruit—locked in
like counter-curved twin

hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant-
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can’t

harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear-

leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;

as carrots from mandrakes
or a ram’s-horn root some-
times. Victory won’t come

to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till

knotted thirty times—so
the bound twig that’s under-
gone and over-gone, can’t stir.

The weak overcomes its
menace, the strong over-
comes itself. What is there

like fortitude! What sap
went through that little thread
to make the cherry red!

Though I’ve been reading a lot of the Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, this one is a holdover from the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.

What Are Years?
By Marianne Moore

   What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
   naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt,—
dumbly calling, deafly listening—that
in misfortune, even death,
      encourages others
      and in its defeat, stirs

   the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
   accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
      in its surrendering
      finds its continuing.

   So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
   grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
      This is mortality,
      this is eternity.

Current Tea: Honey Bee tea (black tea with sweet honey flavor from honey bee pollen)

I found this one in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.

A Grave
By Marianne Moore

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,
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 among 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 lighthouses and noise of bell-bouys,
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.

I’m rather surprised I’ve never posted anything by Marianne Moore before. Naturally, I came across her work in the Nor Anthology of Modern Poetry. This poem was a beast to format (I wanted all the indentations to be correct), but I really liked the description of the ant’s behavior, in contrast (or comparison!) to human behavior.

Critics and Connoisseurs
By Marianne Moore

There is a great amount of poetry in unconscious
   fastidiousness. Certain Ming
      products, imperial floor coverings of coach—
   wheel yellow, are well enough in their way but I have seen something
         that I like better—a
            mere childish attempt to make an imperfectly ballasted animal stand up
            similar determination to make a pup
               eat his meat from the plate.

I remember a swan under the willows in Oxford,
   with flamingo-colored, maple—
      leaflike feet. It reconnoitered like a battle
   ship. Disbelief and conscious fastidiousness were
         ingredients in its
            disinclination to move. Finally its hardihood was not proof against its
            proclivity to more fully appraise such bits
               of food as the stream

bore counter to it; made away with what I gave it
   to eat. I have seen this swan and
      I have seen you; I have seen ambition without
   understanding in a variety of forms. Happening to stand
         by an ant-hill, I have
            seen a fastidious ant carrying a stick north, south, east, west, till it turned on
            itself, struck out from the flower bed into the lawn,
               and returned to the point

from which it had started. Then abandoning the stick as
   useless and overtaxing its
      jaws with a particle of whitewash pill-like but
   heavy, it again went through the same course of procedure. What is
         there in being able
            to say that one has dominated the stream in an attitude of self-defense,
            in proving that one has had the experience
               of carrying a stick?

Current Tea: spicy chai (apparently the spicy components are proprietary)