13 Ways of Looking at a Circus April 2014 | Page 18

When the crowd has left the tent
They go back home
Amazed, to the apartments they rent
Alex

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.

A man on a trapeze
Goes in many circles
‘til he falls in a safety net
Jonathan

When the circus left town
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles
Joanna

When the lion roared out of hearing
It traced the line
Of one of many circles.
Paiton

When I left
We had fun.
When I came back
I was bored.
Nate

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?

IX
When the blackbird
flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
The horses making their sounds
Waiting for the gates to open.
The riders waiting for the light to go green
While an elephant balancing on a ball
Blocks the lights
Jessica

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

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.