Photo Credit: Danny Sherrard

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.