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“The Sense of the Sleight-Of-Hand Man” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 18792 Aug 1955)
One’s grand flights, one’s Sunday baths,
One’s tootings at the weddings of the soul
Occur as they occur. So bluish clouds
Occurred above the empty house and the leaves
Of the rhododendrons rattled their gold,
As if some one lived there. Such foods of white
Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind
Threw its contorted strength around the
Could you have said the bluejay suddenly
Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays
Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.
The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.
To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine
And pines that are cornets, so it occurs,
And a little island full of geese and stars:
It may be that the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with the life
That is the sensual, pearly spouse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.