Marianne Moore: Nevertheless

Marianne Moore

(1887 -1972)

Nevertheless

 

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!

 

Marianne Moore poetry

kempis.nl poetry magazine

 

More in: Archive M-N