The Paper Nautilus (For Alfred Stieglitz)

The only elegance of the sea is the satin at the center of the paper nautilus,    special, because it uses what has been displaced
by a hesitant current to make an immune shell,
 a shield with loveliness as its function.
  If torn by sharp waters, it can grow a new shape beside its old one, a creature capable of shelter   and of armor.

There is something of tenacity in all art when brought back to the tags of their belief, 1 hat the world bestowed upon him, one truth. Sometimes the clutch of beauty will choke the one who attempts to possess it. but as in the paper shell, there resides a bulbous, opalescent dream.

• Marianne Moore