Blackbird in Winter


XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

(photograph - masahisa fukase)

As the snow melts I share a final poetic thought as Winter appears to be on the wane. Stevens' famous poem evokes tranquillity and nature among other things. He commented in a letter that the poem dealt with sense experiences or "sensations" (Letters, 251). Our sensations of winter depend so much on our perspective, as "the eye of the blackbird", and our imagination, as we may see "golden birds". I prefer to meditate on the simple beauty of the poem.



V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

from 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' by Wallace Stevens




The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1954.
The Solitude of Ravens by Masahisa Fukase. Chronicle Books, New York. 1992.