20 January 2023 (snowing)

it was snowing

and it was going to snow

cardinal in the cedar

*

An homage to Wallace Stevens’s classic “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” The italicized lines are from the final stanza of his poem.

29 December 2019 (Sunday)

sunday morning

complacency

of the just-fed cat

Today’s haiku is a (quotidien) nod to the American poet Wallace Stevens, whose poem “Sunday Morning” (1915) has long been a favorite. It opens thus:

1

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

3 December 2019 (snow)

Wallace Stevens’s poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” is a classic of modern poetry and clearly influenced by Japanese haiku, which was just beginning to intrigue American poets and writers in the early 1900’s. Also, the poem’s a long-time favorite of mine.

During today’s snowstorm, this stanza from the poem comes to mind:

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

“It was snowing / And it was going to snow.” Ah, winter in Maine.

all day snow

a white fox emerging

from a dream

February 2: Morning Meditation 6

In this morning's guided meditation for Winter Feast for the Soul, Tibetan monk Anam Thubten described how in a certain meditative state we feel "empty inside in a beautiful way." I couldn't help but think of Wallace Stevens's poem The Snow Man, which is referenced in line two below.

More snow falling.
It takes a mind of winter
to simply watch it fall.

March 3: Scarborough Marsh

In the frozen saltmarsh
nothing moves
but three foraging crows.

January 10: Crows in the pines

Sitting in a meeting late afternoon, I sensed a shadow passing by an office window near me that looks out onto a small wooded park. Subtly turning my head, I realized that the shadow was a crow flying into a tall pine. Followed by another crow, and another. A group of crows--a family? a small winter flock?--was heading for the shelter of the boughs to roost for the night.

I was reminded of a section of Wallace Stevens' poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird":

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.


Shadow of a crow.
My mood shifts
with my attention.

January 6: Wishing to See an Owl

Driving home from an evening meeting tonight, it occurred to me that the old farm fields along Simonton Road would be an ideal place to see an owl. I see turkeys there sometimes. And those fields are probably full of rodents tunneling around under the snow and grass. Some big old oaks stand on the open hills like sentinels, perfect strategic perches for a bird of prey. So why not an owl? 

I wished and wished for an owl to swoop across the road within range of my headlights. Of course, the cool thing about wild animals is that they don't do what you want. They live on their own schedule. Unless of course you're Aquaman, able to summon the creatures of the sea through mental telepathy. (Which I tried to do once as a kid. I spent a whole day on my grandparents' beach staring at the waves trying to summon a dolphin, concluded that I definitely do not have super powers.)

Not seeing an owl despite thinking really hard about seeing one made me realize that really it's all a matter of perception. Which got me thinking about the last stanza of Wallace Stevens' amazing and mind-twisting poem "The Snow Man" (1921):

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
and, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

So here's a poem of what might have been:

To see what you seek--

nexus of want and desire

manifests as owl.