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 whistling Or just after.

IV He rode Over Connecticut In a glass boat.

V The exclusively black Of the legs of the blackbird, Caressed in spring, becomes a lesser shadow.

VI O thin men of Havanna, The blackbird whistling Or just after.

VII Icicles of the afternoon Were neither full nor empty.

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 on the sky, Hesitating between the dark and the red of dawn, A flock descends, And that longing is to be contained in its resolution.

XI Across the snowy expanses, Beside sentiments and colors, It condenses down to simplicity; Among the blackbirds, Faces like moths in the grove.

XII The coiling wind rises, Harshness becomes real; Upon the brink of all, the blackbird sings.

XIII There it is, there it is
Black red, the sun embers afar,
And there the full simplicity of the wild,
The essence of freedom amidst this this place.

• Wallace Stevens