Akoot Famous Writers

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself


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 mâché . . .
The sun was coming from 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.

Written by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

<----> SEND THIS POEM TO A FRIEND! <---->

Wallace Stevens Poets Page