Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

[Swede]

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens

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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.

[XemaSab]

1. That's one of my favorite poems

Definitely in the top 5.

[aaronbees]

2. Wallace Stevens....

sure was a strange bird when it came to his aesthetics. What a wonderful poem this is. :)

[pitohui]

3. i had a strange experience once

thousands upon thousands like a carpet of blackbirds landed in my yard like a blanket -- it was an adult male only group -- and when they turned, they suddenly all flashed the red patch on their wings at once, like it was choreographed

i have often seen the gatherings in winter and often the sex segregated groups but never anything that quite caught the light and the timing like that

too bad mr stevens wasn't around to write that up nicely, it is hard to express in words

[XemaSab]

4. I was of 2,364 minds

Like a backyard with
2,364 blackbirds.

[pitohui]

5. heh maybe so EOM

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