Light in the Separation

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

BY WALLACE STEVENS

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 blackbirds 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.

Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Copyright 1954 Wallace Stevens.

We are lying in a bed, large and soft. It is neither the first nor the last time we have lied next to each other, but it is one of the few that we have held each other, even if the holding is loose and distant in a moment, strong and tight in the next. I am curled against his back, my arm resting on his waist, my hand held under his against his chest. My knees do not quite reach his. We are back and forth, between anger and tenderness. This is not playful. This is not light. It will be a surprise if either of us can fall asleep.

My eyes are open, staring at the back of his neck, the slightness of his broad shoulder. In a few hours, I will be gone, physically, but not gone the way that he is gone from me, even in this proximity. I lift my hand from underneath his and turn onto my back. I begin to cry, a few quiet tears. I have been holding him tight to devour the distance I feel with him, and now, I am backing away because I cannot find him.

He awakens, not from sleep but into awareness, and turns towards me. I turn my face away but not my body, squeezing my eyes closed, holding my breath. He may have asked me what is wrong, he may not have. I am overcome by an uncontrollable ache, as if my heart is physically breaking apart. I may have said this to him; I may have only given expression and no words. He takes his right hand and places it on the center of my chest, sliding his left hand against the mattress and under my back. I feel only his hands and the space between them. His hands and face are tender. His body is near mine, but it is only his hands clenching this heart shaft that I can feel. He is letting me cry, letting my heart break into a million pieces. His hands hold the space, making it easier for the pieces to crumble, explode, shatter – or just separate like tectonic plates, growing a space between them to be filled with a vast ocean, deep and blue and full of mysteries.

Maybe it will take lifetimes for someone to engineer a craft to cross these oceans, just like the early explorers, like Shakelton and his men, sailing to the Arctic, and surviving in the shipwreck.

This is a man who believes that a broken heart is the best medicine; that we cannot begin to live and grow with a heart bound up, tight, locked, sealed. At first, I twist to get away from him. I do not want him to coax my heart open. I am warm with anger, wrestling in terror that my heart will explode, and that he will be there to witness it and will not be the one to build a boat to cross the divide. Soon, I forget about the space between the pieces or my idea that another person needs to swim across them. Instead, despite the pain and tearful breathing, it is as if flood lights are ignited at the bottom of the ocean, sending light through the deep sea of separation. This light is the thing the space is for. His hands are warm; hot with light, bright enough to be fire.

This story is not about a man, even if the we is a man and me, even if the events are true.

We, you and me, can kill it all day long. We can tell the story several ways – where it is about a relationship, about loss and plummeting love, about confusion and questions, distance, lies, and truth. We can act like gossiping women, out to dinner around a bottle of wine, being boisterous with our anger about the unfairness of our relationships; mostly, being rowdy with our hurt and disappointment. There is nothing wrong with turning hurt into laughter – sometimes it’s the only way to survive. These are the actions, the events, and all of these ways of telling the story can be true. None of them are wrong.

I am reluctant to say this, because there is a part of me that wants to be the game-playing, upper-handed, gossiping woman in the corner – but I will say it anyway, because that is a thought to plow through and not indulge. Two nights ago I was re-reading a section in A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield (let’s call him JK from now on), titled Necessary Healing. This chapter is broken into four parts: Healing the Body, Healing the Heart, Healing the Mind, and Healing through Emptiness. I have found that a few things in the Healing the Heart section have stayed with me. As I continue to look at this moment lying in bed with this man’s hands pressing into my chest and catching the force in my back, I chew on them and digest further:

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Hearts are meant to be broken.” As we heal through meditation, our hearts break open to feel fully. Powerful feelings, deep unspoken parts of ourselves arise, and our task in meditation is first to let them move through us, then to recognize them and allow them to sing their songs. What we find as we listen to the songs of our rage or fear, loneliness or longing, is that they do not stay forever. Rage turns into sorrow; sorrow turns into tears; tears may fall for a long time, but then the sun comes out. A memory of old loss sings to us; our body shakes and relives the moment of loss; then the armoring around that loss gradually softens; and in the midst of the song of tremendous grieving, the pain of that loss finally finds release.

Most often this healing work is so difficult we need another person as an ally, a guide to hold our hand and inspire our courage as we go through it. Then miracles can happen.

It is important to not lose context, as JK is writing about work through meditation, not necessarily moments of intimacy between friends or lovers. I am not saying that they are the same thing, though I remain to be unsure if they are not.

Maybe our Guides are not always, or often, considered great spiritual teachers, leaders, or gurus. No matter how messy and confusing it can be, I would like to believe that miracles can begin to happen when we seize the moments we have with each other. In this moment with the man, I do not know his intentions or his clarity, but I do know what I felt. It was not a transformation of our being together or of the clarity or context of our relationship or love. It was a transformation of my heart; of rage into sorrow, sorrow into tears, a softening of armor, a deep feeling of loss and the beginning of releasing it. I also believe it was the hands of an ally, holding a space, and inspiring courage to enter.

Neil Young sings, “Only love can break your heart.”Whether it is a love we feel or give, or one that we receive; I believe him, and thank God.