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 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.


-- Wallace Stevens

Since I love this poem, I've posted it here as a gift to all, those who also love it but until they see it in print aren't thinking of it, and for those who don't know it but might appreciate the beauty and complexity of this work.

I think love is a blackbird, it is all the things above and more. It is not something that's given on a specific day. And if there had to be a Valentine's day, I would choose a day in the warmer months, when love seems easier to find or feel. When sun warms the skin and the heart, and blue skies whisper with a sweet breath of flowers and ferns.

Even the blackbird itself is affected by climate and circumstance. "Songs of blackbirds produced in various locations have been compared to evaluate the influence of background noise on the structure of songs. The "twitter" part of the song is high in frequency and low in amplitude and therefore degrades rapidly. This component was shorter in duration in sites with high levels of anthropogenic noise."

The whirrs, swishes, beeps, chimes, rings, whistles, screeches, bangs, crashes that assault our ears every day alter the sound of the blackbird as they do the song of love.

Spend five minutes staring into the eyes of your loved one in a quiet space without saying a word. Let the blackbird sing its true song.