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“Study Of Images (I)” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 1879 – 2 Aug 1955)
It does no good to speak of the big, blue bush
Of day. If the study of his images
Is the study of man, this image of Saturday,
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This Italian symbol, this Southern landscape, is like
A waking, as in images we awake,
Within the very object that we seek,
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Participants of its being. It is, we are.
He is, we are. Ah, bella! He is, we are,
Within the big, blue bush and its vast shade
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At evening and at night. It does no good.
Stop at the terraces of mandolins,
False, faded and yet inextricably there,
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The pulse of the object, the heat of the body grown cold
Or cooling in late leaves, not false except
When the image itself is false, a mere desire,
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Not faded, if images are all we have.
They can be no more faded than ourselves.
The blood refreshes with its stale demands.