Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

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

This poem strayed into my being (and is still roosting there) when I saw some photos of a Blackbird on a friend's FB feed. In fact, I couldn't ID the bird, as I have never been outside India and never seen / photographed any Blackbirds. But then, its a bird that seems to be almost a celebrity if one goes by the volume of bird poetry devoted to it. Another (in fact, a dryly prosaic take) would be to see it as a common bird that is almost common in bird poetry. And still, this poem elevates it to nearly mystic and mythical levels, does it not?

One wonders -- what deliberation and effort must have gone into the minimalism and pithy nature of these lines. And one wonders -- what kinship must the poet feel for a bird before he / she can see so much in it?

Thoughts to ponder -- for me -- as I start putting together my own book of bird poems.