POEMS BY 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.
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 æsthetic
matters, a metaphysical impossibility," you
are crushed down to the level of the parent block.
Were not "impersonal judgment in æsthetic
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.
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.
DILIGENCE IS TO MAGIC AS PROGRESS IS TO FLIGHT
With an elephant to ride upon—"with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,"
she shall outdistance calamity anywhere she goes.
Speed is not in her mind inseparable from carpets. Locomotion arose
in the shape of an elephant, she clambered up and chose
to travel laboriously. So far as magic carpets are concerned, she knows
that although the semblance of speed may attach to scarecrows
of aesthetic procedure, the substance of it is embodied in such of those
tough-grained animals as have outstripped man's whim to suppose
them ephemera, and have earned that fruit of their ability to endure blows,
which dubs them prosaic necessities—not curios.
she shall outdistance calamity anywhere she goes.
Speed is not in her mind inseparable from carpets. Locomotion arose
in the shape of an elephant, she clambered up and chose
to travel laboriously. So far as magic carpets are concerned, she knows
that although the semblance of speed may attach to scarecrows
of aesthetic procedure, the substance of it is embodied in such of those
tough-grained animals as have outstripped man's whim to suppose
them ephemera, and have earned that fruit of their ability to endure blows,
which dubs them prosaic necessities—not curios.
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