Ah, to consider the sunrise in these terms, as if it were an instrument of the mind, a provocateur of both the visible and invisible, feels like a gesture towards understanding the inexhaustible configurations of imagination. Your "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Sunrise" suggests that the sun itself, in its habitual journey, becomes a mirror for the poet's interior—a resonance I find deeply familiar. Allow me, as Wallace Stevens, to engage with each facet of your contemplation:
I
Yes, the poet watches. Yet, does not the watching itself create the sun? The mind, in its solitude, is both celestial and terrestrial, summoning the orb not in fire, but in thought.
II
Three geese, three sunrises—a trifurcation of light into bird-song and motion. Here, the sun becomes divisible, its singularity undone by perspective. The poet, too, secretes meanings innumerable.
III
A shattering sunrise, fleeting as the poet’s attention—this is beauty in its finest and cruelest form. Stained glass recalls cathedrals of the mind, where light itself is worship.
IV
The oneness you ascribe to river, mountain, and sunrise is not a merger but a kind of simultaneity. They are one only insofar as the poet perceives them so. Without the poet, they remain disparate.
V
Ah, guilt—the poet’s perennial companion. Counting syllables before the rising sun is to impose order on chaos. Yet, what is poetry if not the act of arranging light into lines?
VI
Winter’s despondency mirrors the poet’s—a fogged horizon where even words freeze. Silence tempts because it mirrors the blank page, where all possibility is latent but unrealized.
VII
The Columbia flows east, a counter-intuitive beauty. This turning river suggests that even nature rebels against its habitual movements. A lesson for the poet: why settle for sunsets when sunrises exist?
VIII
The recurrence of the sunrise across disparate places invokes the universal. Yet, sameness is an illusion; the mind reconfigures each dawn differently. The scablands themselves reinterpret the sun’s gaze.
IX
Horizons multiplying like fractals—each sunrise fragments space and time. This is the poet’s gift: to see not a singular boundary but an infinite procession of edges.
X
Ah, the painter's cannula—mad and generous! Even scarcity, embodied in your stags, finds abundance in the unrestrained splurge of light. What is sunrise but nature’s most lavish economy?
XI
The headlights are an ingenious metaphor, vestiges of a sun misplaced. The kitchen window becomes a lens through which the poet's fears project the mundane into myth.
XII
The moon and the sun exchange dominion, celestial tides of time. To state “the sun must be rising” is an affirmation of faith, a compact with inevitability.
XIII
Your final lines are a triumph of contradiction: a sunset afternoon, a rainbound sunrise lodged within the poet’s limbs. The light persists, despite the weather of the world, as a residue of thought.
Your poem, like the sunrise it describes, invites the reader to dwell in the space between the external and the internal, between what is seen and what is imagined. It is a fitting homage, not an apology. I do not mind being borrowed if the use is this inventive.
I'm very glad that I kept this unread in my inbox. As a musician, it's a struggle to keep up with poetry during this busy season but your artistry is well worth it.
Nicely done, Jonathan. I don’t think Stevens would mind.
Thanks, Paul
Chatbot Stevens responds:
Ah, to consider the sunrise in these terms, as if it were an instrument of the mind, a provocateur of both the visible and invisible, feels like a gesture towards understanding the inexhaustible configurations of imagination. Your "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Sunrise" suggests that the sun itself, in its habitual journey, becomes a mirror for the poet's interior—a resonance I find deeply familiar. Allow me, as Wallace Stevens, to engage with each facet of your contemplation:
I
Yes, the poet watches. Yet, does not the watching itself create the sun? The mind, in its solitude, is both celestial and terrestrial, summoning the orb not in fire, but in thought.
II
Three geese, three sunrises—a trifurcation of light into bird-song and motion. Here, the sun becomes divisible, its singularity undone by perspective. The poet, too, secretes meanings innumerable.
III
A shattering sunrise, fleeting as the poet’s attention—this is beauty in its finest and cruelest form. Stained glass recalls cathedrals of the mind, where light itself is worship.
IV
The oneness you ascribe to river, mountain, and sunrise is not a merger but a kind of simultaneity. They are one only insofar as the poet perceives them so. Without the poet, they remain disparate.
V
Ah, guilt—the poet’s perennial companion. Counting syllables before the rising sun is to impose order on chaos. Yet, what is poetry if not the act of arranging light into lines?
VI
Winter’s despondency mirrors the poet’s—a fogged horizon where even words freeze. Silence tempts because it mirrors the blank page, where all possibility is latent but unrealized.
VII
The Columbia flows east, a counter-intuitive beauty. This turning river suggests that even nature rebels against its habitual movements. A lesson for the poet: why settle for sunsets when sunrises exist?
VIII
The recurrence of the sunrise across disparate places invokes the universal. Yet, sameness is an illusion; the mind reconfigures each dawn differently. The scablands themselves reinterpret the sun’s gaze.
IX
Horizons multiplying like fractals—each sunrise fragments space and time. This is the poet’s gift: to see not a singular boundary but an infinite procession of edges.
X
Ah, the painter's cannula—mad and generous! Even scarcity, embodied in your stags, finds abundance in the unrestrained splurge of light. What is sunrise but nature’s most lavish economy?
XI
The headlights are an ingenious metaphor, vestiges of a sun misplaced. The kitchen window becomes a lens through which the poet's fears project the mundane into myth.
XII
The moon and the sun exchange dominion, celestial tides of time. To state “the sun must be rising” is an affirmation of faith, a compact with inevitability.
XIII
Your final lines are a triumph of contradiction: a sunset afternoon, a rainbound sunrise lodged within the poet’s limbs. The light persists, despite the weather of the world, as a residue of thought.
Your poem, like the sunrise it describes, invites the reader to dwell in the space between the external and the internal, between what is seen and what is imagined. It is a fitting homage, not an apology. I do not mind being borrowed if the use is this inventive.
It was sunset all afternoon.
It was raining.
And it was going to rain.
The sunrise remained
In the poet's limbs
.
Counting syllables before the rising sun is to impose order on chaos. Yet, what is poetry if not the act of arranging light into lines?"
.
Jonathan, too bad there's only a "Like" button. This requires something stronger. 💛
Thank you, Ann
The first is my favorite. It made me laugh. Close second is III, because I'm a sucker for alliteration and a good rhythm.
But why must you apologize to Stevens? Enlighten your illiterate friends who gaze at stars but not at books.
I guess the idea is to acknowledge stealing the mojo of the original.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/286515/why-do-we-say-apologies-to-when-we-quote-someone
Ah, this: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird
Oh! The “Stevens” link below the poem takes you there too
Missed that!
I loved every single stanza.
Thank you Troy
I watched - I saw - I’m blind
I'm very glad that I kept this unread in my inbox. As a musician, it's a struggle to keep up with poetry during this busy season but your artistry is well worth it.
Thanks Mark I’m glad you came back around to it and I totally know the feeling