Valley Candle
July 6, 2023Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
July 6, 2023Two Figures in Dense Violet Light
I had as lief be embraced by the portier of the hotel
As to get no more from the moonlight
Than your moist hand.
Be the voice of the night and Florida in my ear.
Use dasky words and dusky images.
Darken your speech.
Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,
But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,
Conceiving words,
As the night conceives the sea-sound in silence,
And out of the droning sibilants makes
A serenade.
Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-pole
and sleep with one eye watching the stars fall
Beyond Key West.
Say that the palms are clear in the total blue.
Are clear and are obscure; that it is night;
That the moon shines.
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was an American modernist poet who explored complex philosophical and aesthetic questions through his poetry. His most famous works include "The Idea of Order at Key West" and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Stevens won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955, shortly before his death.