Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird

 

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  I 
Among twenty snowy mountains, 
The only moving thing 
Was the eye of the blackbird. 

  II 
I was of three minds, 
Like a tree 
In which there are three blackbirds. 

  III 
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. 
It was a small part of the pantomime. 

  IV 
A man and a woman 
Are one. 
A man and a woman and a blackbird 
Are one. 

  V 
I do not know which to prefer, 
The beauty of inflections 
Or the beauty of innuendoes, 
The blackbird whistling 
Or just after. 

   VI 
Icicles filled the long window 
With barbaric glass. 
The shadow of the blackbird 
Crossed it, to and fro. 
The mood 
Traced in the shadow 
An indecipherable cause. 

   VII 
O thin men of Haddam, 
Why do you imagine golden birds? 
Do you not see how the blackbird 
Walks around the feet 
Of the women about you? 

  VIII 
I know noble accents 
And lucid, inescapable rhythms; 
But I know, too, 
That the blackbird is involved 
In what I know. 

  IX 
When the blackbird flew out of sight, 
It marked the edge 
Of one of many circles. 

  X 
At the sight of blackbirds 
Flying in a green light, 
Even the bawds of euphony 
Would cry out sharply. 

   XI 
He rode over Connecticut 
In a glass coach. 
Once, a fear pierced him, 
In that he mistook 
The shadow of his equipage 
For blackbirds. 

   XII 
The river is moving. 
The blackbird must be flying. 

   XIII 
It was evening all afternoon. 
It was snowing 
And it was going to snow. 
The blackbird sat 
In the cedar-limbs.

--Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), American poet, from Harmonium, 1923