XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird 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.
Summary
The penultimate section, number twelve, offers a logical hypothesis in a short couplet: if the river is flowing—i.e. thawed—then the blackbird must also be moving, continuing its flight through the world.
The last stanza returns to the snowy landscape of the first stanza, but the scene is more focused: the light is fading, the day grows dark early, and it is snowing with no signs of stopping. Above the scene, the blackbird is now motionless, perched in the branches of a cedar tree.
Analysis: XII
These last two stanzas make an odd pair, but their placement together as the final two sections of the poem is crucial. By one possible interpretation, they are two alternate endings. How does our journey of "looking" end—does the blackbird take flight and continue in nature's unending motion, or does it settle into a tree and await the ending of the day?
The first option, stanza XII, touches on the nature of time as well as human logic. In the seasonal progression of the poem, which has dwelt in snow and ice for its entirety, this stanza hints at the arrival of spring: the thaw implied by "The river is moving." It hints at rebirth and forward motion. The flying blackbird resumes its cyclical flight from section III, its small part in the "pantomime" of nature, and the poem suggests that the cycles of nature will continue indefinitely into the future, offering endless further opportunities to study the blackbird, see it and connect to it in countless new ways. In one sense, this stanza is an escape from the constant winter of the poem, but it is also the promise that a new cycle will begin, a new sequence of looking. It comfortingly asserts the reliability and predictability of nature.
The statement exposes itself very plainly as a bare-bones equation of two parts: if (A), then (B). There is no attempt to blur the two sections: they are two sentences in two lines. The grammar is neatly paralleled in the double "-ing" ending. The self-assurance of this plain statement gives it the tone of an aphorism—it has the sound of universal truth—but this stanza also implicitly questions the extent of human logic. The conclusion itself is a tenuous one at best: the flow of the river has no inherent correlation or causation with the flight of the blackbird. The section is an attempt to rationalize the blackbird, to give it order in a mental frame, that glosses over the uncertainty that has surrounded the blackbird throughout the poem. Thus, the stanza's statement is dubious, tempting us with seemingly confident logic, whose incompleteness then reminds us of the limits of what we can know, the "indecipherable cause" (VI) and the "edge" of the circle of perception (IX).
Analysis: XIII
If there is to be a continuation of the cycle of seasons, the blackbird's flight, and the observer's looking, it will not happen within the confines of this poem. Section XII suggests a glimpse of rebirth outside the world of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"; the final section XIII just as quickly returns to images of winter, stillness, and closure. Rather than continuing the broader cycle of nature, this stanza closes the textual circle of the poem by returning to a snowy scene reminiscent of section I. Now, however, the roles have switched: the landscape itself is moving as the snow falls continuously, and the blackbird is the only thing not moving. Several uniquely exquisite lines build the tone of finality: "It was evening all afternoon" sums up a winter day in which darkness comes early. "It was snowing / And it was going to snow" calmly asserts inevitability and timelessness: for the length of this image, we are suspended in the moment right before sundown, when we know the day is just about to end. Again, the verb "to be" carries immense weight: the triple usage of "was" is as simple as it is absolutely final. In the inverse of the moving eye in section I, which acted as the reader's vehicle into the "looking" process of the poem, in the last couplet our attention inevitably settles onto the blackbird, which is now an anchor of stillness, sitting and awaiting the imminent dark.
How we interpret this ending depends profoundly on what meanings we have assigned to the blackbird over the course of the poem. The stanzas' various perspectives coalesce into this final interpretive choice: is the thirteenth stanza one of tranquility or despair—or somewhere in between? Most optimistically and pragmatically, we have faith that night is a benign part of nature and will always be followed by day. By this approach, the stanza is a peaceful scene that reinforces our unity with the blackbird and all of nature: we "Are one" with the bird as we accept the ending of the poem, satisfied with having completed the journey of perspectives. If we have learned one thing from the poem, it is hopefully that the blackbird can mean any number of things to different observers, and that we can choose to find beauty in it.
The more pessimistic, symbolic interpretation is of the blackbird as the omen of death. In this view, the inevitability of the snowfall and evening are the coming of our own sundown: at the end of life, the blackbird will watch passively as nature collects us into its cold ground. The black bird perched in the limbs might evoke vultures, or Satan in Paradise Lost perched on the Tree of Life in the guise of a cormorant, watching over the scene of the Fall of Man. Death is thus the unknown that has lurked under the surface of the poem, in the shadows that have frightened us momentarily. However, perhaps these two interpretations are not so irreconcilable: after all, death is always implicit in the natural unknown, and a serene unity with nature will always involve acceptance of eventual death. The poem has suggested repeatedly that our ability to rationalize the symbols of nature will always be limited, but that we are nevertheless capable of a near-infinite array of perspectives to interpret life in as many different ways.
