13 Ways of Looking at a Circus April 2014 | Page 8

The elephant and baby elephant
Are one
The elephant and baby elephant
And elephant trainer
are one
Chris

The circus and acts
are one
the circus and acts
and people are one
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.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a
blackbird
Are one.

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?

The joke is one
The joker and the one hit by the pie
Are separate
Now they’re all tied together
Jonathan

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

An elephant and poop
Are one
An elephant and poop
and pooper scooper
Are one
David

A man and woman
are one
An acrobat and a lion tamer
Are one
A tiger and an elephant
Are one
Joanna

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.