Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackberry Poem by Forrest Hainline

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye on the blackberry.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a room
In which there are three blackberries.

III

The blackberry whirled under autumn thumbs.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackberry
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackberry vibrating
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackberry
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 blackberry
Wraps around the fingers
Of the women about you?

VIII

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

IX

When the blackberry tucked out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackberries
Glowing 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 blackberries.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackberry must be posting.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackberry sat
In their fingers.