Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Wishful Thinking



Edward Munch, The Sun (1912)
(Giving thanks four months in advance).


At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.

That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

Wallace Stevens, "Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spring knows nothing;
Summer's a willful child;
Autumn knows what's coming;
And winter's the new dawn of an old reality.

Novalis said...

Anonymous,

Whoever you may be, now I know I can count on you to respond...

(Never heard that--did you make it up?)

Happy Thanksgiving