A poem by Wallace Stevens:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

                     1
           Among twenty snowy mountains,
           The only moving thing
           Was the eye of the blackbird.

                     2
           I was of three minds,
           Like a tree
           In which there are three blackbirds.

                     3
           The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
           It was a small part of the pantomime.

                     4
           A man and a woman
           Are one.
           A man and a woman and a blackbird
           Are one.

                     5
           I do not know which to prefer,
           The beauty of inflections
           Or the beauty of innuendoes,
           The blackbird whistling
           Or just after.

                     6
           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.

                     7
           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?

                     8
           I know noble accents
           And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
           But I know, too,
           That the blackbird is involved
           In what I know.

                     9
           When the blackbird flew out of sight,
           It marked the edge
           Of one of many circles.

                     10
           At the sight of blackbirds
           Flying in a green light,
           Even the bawds of euphony
           Would cry out sharply.

                     11
           He rode over Connecticut
           In a glass coach.
           Once, a fear pierced him,
           In that he mistook
           The shadow of his equipage
           For blackbirds.

                     12
           The river is moving.
           The blackbird must be flying.

                     13
           It was evening all afternoon.
           It was snowing
           And it was going to snow.
           The blackbird sat
           In the cedar-limbs.

posted by craniac @