It Is a Living Coral
a trouble
archaically fettered
to produce
E Pluribus Unum an
island
in the sea a Capitol
surmounted
by Armed Liberty—
painting
sculpture straddled by
a dome
eight million pounds
in weight
iron plates constructed
to expand
and contract with
variations
of temperature
the folding
and unfolding of a lily.
And Congress
authorized and the
Commission
was entrusted was
entrusted!
a sculptured group
Mars
in Roman mail placing
a wreath
of laurel on the brow
of Washington
Commerce Minerva
Thomas
Jefferson John Hancock
at
the table Mrs. Motte
presenting
Indian burning arrows
to Generals
Marion and Lee to fire
her mansion
and dislodge the British—
this scaleless
jumble is superb
and accurate in its
expression
of the thing they
would destroy—
Baptism of Poca-
hontas
with a little card
hanging
under it to tell
the persons
in the picture.
It climbs
it runs, it is Geo.
Shoup
of Idaho it wears
a beard
it fetches naked
Indian
women from a river
Trumbull
Varnum Henderson
Frances
Willard’s corset is
absurd—
Banks White Columbus
stretched
in bed men felling trees
The Hon. Michael
C. Kerr
onetime Speaker of
the House
of Representatives
Perry
in a rowboat on Lake
Erie
changing ships the
dead
among the wreckage
sickly green
Copyright Credit: William Carlos Williams, “It Is a Living Coral” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1991 by William Carlos Williams. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1991)