Where are the blackbirds?

The picture below was taken on March 13, 2016, seven years ago. March 13, 2023 occurred ten days ago. Admittedly, I’ve not been out and about that much recently, but I’ve not yet seen any red-winged blackbirds this year. Their arrival is something else to look forward to, although their song(?) / call(?) is far from melodious to my ears.

red-winged blackbird returned for Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

Slowly, every so slowly, the ice on the driveway is melting from east, where the blacktopped road is, toward the west, where the garage is. Unfortunately the shadows deepen along the drive as we move toward the west. At the rate we’re going, I may get to give the Better Half a Mother’s Day present of a driveway that’s finally ice-free. Today I bring that up because tomorrow someone I’ve known for a relatively short period of time, and that only virtually, is bringing me two boxes of poetry books that he needs to find a new, caring, home for. I’m planning on backing my Jeep down the drive to the road, so we can do the transfer where his vehicle is much less likely to get stuck and both of us less likely to slip and fall. If he has time for a cup of coffee, I’ll give him a ride up the drive into the garage, where he can disembark onto a damp but relatively ice-free floor. Damn the complications mid-February and March rains, followed by freezing temperatures, impose on North Country living! Then again, two cartons of poetry books that I may not have read is the kind of “problem” I can enjoy “solving.”

I’m truly curious to see which poets and what kinds of poetry will be in the boxes. Will they complement my normal reading patterns or lead me off in new directions? Is my taste in poetry already eclectic enough that there will be nothing jarring? Can people with somewhat similar outlooks on life have significantly disparate collections of poems? Admittedly, a sample of one pair is not statistically significant but it’s likely to be the best I get in this lifetime. No doubt there are at least as many ways of looking at poetry and life as there are of looking at a blackbird.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens

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.

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