by Marianne Moore (1887-1972)Saint Nicholas,might I, if you can find it, be givena chameleon with tail that curls like a watch spring; and vertical on the body--including the face--pale tiger-stripes, about seven; (the melanin in the skin having been shaded from the sun by thin bars; the spinal dome beaded along the ridge as if it were platinum)? If you can find no striped chameleon, might I have a dress or suit-- I guess you have heard of it--of quiviut? and to wear wtih it, a taslon shirt, the drip-dry fruit of research second to none; sewn, I hope, by Excello; as for buttons to keep down the collar-points, no. The shirt could be white-- and be "worn before six," either in daylight or at night. But don't give me, if I can't have the dress, a trip to Greenland, or grim trip to the moon. The moon should come here. Let him make the trip down, spread on my dark floor some dim marvel, and if a success that I stoop to pick up and wear, I could ask nothing more. A thing yet more rare, though, and different, would be this: Hans von Marées' St. Hubert, kneeling with head bent, erect--in velvet and tense with restraint-- hand hanging down: the horse, free. Not the original, of course. Give me a postcard of the scene--huntsman and divinity-- hunt-mad Hubert startled into a saint by a stag with a Figure entwined. But why tell you what you must have divined? Saint Nicholas, O Santa Claus, would it not be the most prized gift that ever was? Read More Poetry: Complete Poems, Marianne Moore, 1967, MacMillan Publishing reprint 1981.
Christmas Poems
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