Those Various Scalpels

By Marianne Moore 1887–1972 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?

Source: The Poems of Marianne Moore (Penguin Books, 2005)

Biography

Marianne Moore garnered significant critical acclaim and public recognition for her poetry during her six-decade career, including the rare triumph of winning poetry's "triple crown" of major awards—the National Book Award in 1952, the Pulitzer Prize in 1952, and the Bollingen Prize in 1953—for her 1951 work Collected Poems. Born in Kirkwood, Missouri outside of Saint Louis, Moore's family moved to Pennsylvania when she was 9. . . .

Continue reading this biography