Saturday, July 28, 2012

Marianne Moore: To a Steam Roller

The illustration
is nothing to you without the application.
  You lack half wit. You crush all the particles down
    into close conformity, and then walk back and forth
      on them.

Sparkling chips of rock
are crushed down to the level of the parent block.
  Were not "impersonal judgment in aesthetic
     matters, a metaphysical impossibility," you

might fairly achieve
It. As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive
  of one's attending upon you, but to question
  the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.