Marianne Moore

Talisman

    Under a splintered mast,
    torn from ship and cast
            near her hull,

    a stumbling shepherd found
    embedded in the ground,
            a sea-gull

    of lapis lazuli,
    a scarab of the sea,
            with wings spread—

    curling its coral feet,
    parting its beak to greet
            men long dead.