Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Really seeing, really observing

Common Blackbird (Turdus merula)


I love the poetry of Wallace Stevens. Here's one about paying attention:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

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.

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