Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
by Wallace Stevens

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 innuendos.

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 

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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THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BIRD OF PARADISE
A Poem in Twenty-five Images
by Jerral Miles