One Way of Looking at Thirteen Blackbirds
with a tip of the hat to Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
is to go
from seeing them as thirteen discrete
negotiators around the birdbath
determining whose turn it is now
and whose it will be next
to seeing them as one continual
splash of water seeking its own level
and dripping over the edge to
sunbathing grass below, water
already on its way to becoming
white cloud puffs above —
one up there presently that looks
just like Wallace Stevens
focusing on the scene down here,
and then another, smaller cloud
speech-ballooning from his mouth
declaring, “FROM UP HERE IT’S
COUNTLESS BIRDS AND WAYS.”
