wade <br />through black jade <br />Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps <br />adjusting the ash heaps; <br />opening and shutting itself like <br />an <br />injured fan. <br />The barnacles which encrust the side <br />of the wave, cannot hide <br />there for the submerged shafts of the <br />sun, <br />split like spun <br />glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness <br />into the crevices– <br />in and out, illuminating <br />the <br />turquoise sea <br />of bodies. The water drives a wedge <br />of iron through the iron edge <br />of the cliff; whereupon the stars, <br />pink <br />rice-grains, ink- <br />bespattered jelly-fish, crabs like green <br />lilies, and submarine <br />toadstools, slide each on the other. <br />All <br />external <br />marks of abuse are present on this <br />defiant edifice– <br />all the physical features of <br />ac- <br />cident–lack <br />of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and <br />hatchet strokes, these things stand <br />out on it; the chasm-side is <br />dead. <br />Repeated <br />evidence has proved that it can live <br />on what can not revive <br />its youth. The sea grows old in it.<br /><br />Marianne Moore<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fish-6/
