Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

At first when I read this poem I didn't understand it at all but after reading it a little closer I kind of got a sense of what the author was trying to get across. It talks about the black bird in so many different ways and places that I think it means that everyone is connected in some way. A sense of chaos comes off to me in the first and second stanza's because he's talking about the blackbird in multiple places. It's weird how the blackbird is included in everything, and all the different situations don't seem to be related to each other at all. He also could be talking about the fact that everyone sees the same situation differently because everyone in the story somehow sees the blackbird.
Another thought I had was that the author was talking about wishing you had something that you already do, but just can't see it. It also could mean that everyone has so many things that they don't realize the simple things in life are taken for granted. This makes a lot of sense when looking at the seventh stanza because he talks about golden birds which seem much more important than a blackbird.



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.

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?

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.