Page 17 - שבילים גיליון 22 | ציוני דרך

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
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.
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII XIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved In what I know.
When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.
He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing
And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
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?
15 I22גיליוןIשביליםI