Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HENRY MOORE'S STATUE AT LINCOLN CENTER, by KAREN SWENSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HENRY MOORE'S STATUE AT LINCOLN CENTER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: After listening to durufle's requiem
Last Line: Of shapes which refuse to explain.
Subject(s): Moore, Henry (1898-1986); New York City; Statues; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple


After listening to Durufle's Requiem,
each cupping a dead parent
in the final prayer for paradise
like a candle in the wind,
we sit at the edge of the square pool
where these big bronze bones
will not tell us what they mean.

Across the street at Fordham,
St. Peter casts his net of symbols
to fish men to significance.
But like the sculptures of Peter's God -
these only offer, passively, themselves
to the secret needs of our intent.

Beyond the cast of Peter's net
knotted with reason and justification,
we sail our dead across this pool,
the white paper boats of children
eddying before the bronze arrangement
of shapes which refuse to explain.





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