cloud on the tracks

 

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.

W. Stevens