Blackbirds

 

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

Sharing this poem just because I love it.  

It feels like glimpses of random pages from books I'd like to read more of.  And yet it is enough.

 (pics from Wikimedia Commons)

Nativity Poem...

Christmas Carol

by May Probyn 

(1856–1909)

Lacking samite and sable,
Lacking silver and gold,
The Prince Jesus in the poor stable
Slept, and was three hours old.

As doves by the fair water,

Mary, not touched of sin,
Sat by Him, — the King's daughter,
All glorious within.

A lily without a stain, a

Star where no spot hath room;   
Ave, gratia plena — 
Virgo Virginum!

Clad not in pearl-sewn vesture,

Clad not in cramoisie,
She hath hushed, she hath cradled to rest, her
God the first time on her knee.

Where is one to adore Him?
The ox hath dumbly confessed,
With the ass, meek kneeling before Him,
Et homo factus est.

Not throned on ivory or cedar,

Not crowned with a Queen's crown,
At her breast it is Mary shall feed her
Maker, from Heaven come down.

The trees in Paradise blossom

Sudden, and its bells chime --
She giveth Him, held to her bosom,
Her immaculate milk the first time.

The night with wings of angels
Was alight, and its snow-packed ways
Sweet made (say the Evangels)
With the noise of their virelays.

Quem vidistis, pastores?

Why go ye feet unshod?
Wot ye within yon door is
Mary, the Mother of God?

No smoke of spice is ascending

There -- no roses are piled --
But, choicer than all balms blending,
There Mary hath kissed her Child.

Dilectus meus mihi

Et ego Illi -- cold
Small cheek against her cheek, He
Sleepeth, three hours old.

 

I love this poem about the Nativity.  I love the interlocking rhymes and the quiet imagery--"breathless with adoration." 

Translations from Latin:

Ave, gratia plena—           Hail, full of grace,
  Virgo Virginum!              Virgin of Virgins!

Et homo factus est.          And was made man.

Quem vidistis, pastores?     You see, shepherds

Dilectus meus mihi           My Beloved is mine
  Et ego Illi                  and I am His

A poem for November

November

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!

One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,

Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,

Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.

One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,

And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,

And the blue gentian-flower, that, in the breeze,

Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.

Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee

Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,

The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,

And man delight to linger in thy ray.

Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear

The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. 

 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

It is a quiet, still morning.  Overcast, but the leaves outside are a sort of greeny-gold.  

I love the quietness.

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, And man delight to linger in thy ray. Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23746#sthash.oLaU0q9n.dpuf

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, And man delight to linger in thy ray. Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23746#sthash.oLaU0q9n.dpuf

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, And man delight to linger in thy ray. Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23746#sthash.oLaU0q9n.dpuf

Cool Tombs...by Carl Sandburg

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.

And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.

Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember? ... in the dust, in the cool tombs?

Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns ... tell me if the lovers are losers ... tell me if any get more than the lovers ... in the dust ... in the cool tombs. 

 

 

~ ~ 

 

 

This morning working in the garden I was thinking about this poem.  I love its gentle pondering rhythm.  It starts out almost brutal--"shoveled into the tombs"--but it isn't a brutal poem.  And in the quietness of the tombs, the brusqueness doesn't matter, just as the other conflicts and violence don't matter any more.

 

 

A poem for the first day of Autumn

 
Ode to Autumn


1.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
          To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
        With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
    And still more, later flowers for the bees,
  Until they think warm days will never cease,
          For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

2.
  Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
      Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
  Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
      Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
  Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
      Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
          Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
  And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
      Steady thy laden head across a brook;
  Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
       Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.
  Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
      Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
  While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
      And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
  Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
      Among the river sallows, borne aloft
          Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
  And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
      Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
      The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
          And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

by John Keats

(John Keats, a month before he wrote this poem.)

It's the first day of Autumn, so I give you this poem.  Keats surrounds us with a tapestry of the beauties of the waning year--the gentle mists, the apple trees thick with fruit, the humming gnats, the birds calling to each other as they prepare for their journey south.  No one does with words what he does.

This is Keats' first draft of "Ode to Autumn."  (See, even great poets cross stuff out!)

Pictures from Wikipedia. 

A poem by Wordsworth for September 3

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!
.

        ~ William Wordsworth
.
.

 I meant to post this in the morning, because it's a dawn poem...but just didn't get to it.  Anyway, here it is.  

Such a lovely moment--to be awake in the stillness of early morning, looking out over the city.  

Since it is getting late, here is a link to a poem by Sara Teasdale, called "September Midnight..."

"Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,

Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing..."

(Go read the rest!!)

a poem for Monday morning

The Windhover

to Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

     

   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

            ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins


A glimpse of a beautiful bird in the early morning... 

the other day I was out watering the garden and saw a scrub jay perched in a branch just a few feet away.  I was surprised to see him so close; then I realized he was appreciating the water I was freely bestowing.  

I think I should get a birdbath.