Dark Flight

I have always found the following poem haunting; its atmospheric mood dark as its enigmatic subject.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

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 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.