Top 100 or so Poems -- POEM OF THE DAY - "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" -- By Wallace Stevens

This is one of my favorite Wallace Stevens poems. The imagery - vivid, stark, dark - contrasts and simple conflicting views, presented with minimalist exquisite choices of words and punctuations...

Gives me a soft silent look at the dark blackbird behind the scenes.

A beautiful, remarkable poem. Highly anthologized, this poem appears in a number of anthalogies and is a featured poem in Harmon's Top 500 Anthology.

Enjoy

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD

by Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of a 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 about 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.