Half Pool

A blackbird, or a raindrop, dwarfed by it, cowers to decompose— still in the light of this lily painting, lavished around the still pool, a movement, or an exploration of the mind, a query in each droplet, returning back to the surface. The soft-petaled forms are heavy and weighing down more in the absolute quiet of the colors and the background itself feels beneath, alive with damp.

And to think of virtues tarried here, embraces of shadows, shades of nature. There were muses rippling near, stirring—a pause, and a reference interred in the yielding cloth of spring.

• Marianne Moore