Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2009SYR05
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
A Blackbird Sways On
poster information
Description
A blackbird sways on
a goldenrod stalk covered
with afternoon snow
For me, the return of red-winged blackbirds to our meadow is a sure sign of spring. After a long winter, their spirited song and the flash of their red-and-gold shoulders provide welcomed assurance that the greening of the Central New York landscape will come soon.
But even the blackbirds are too optimistic about winter's departure, often finding themselves perched on old weed stalks, enduring what we hope is the season's final snow.
This haiku reminded me of growing up in Vermont. We lived on a dirt road, and we had a lot of red-winged black birds and goldenrod and, of course, snow.
I also liked the graphic idea of the bird swaying, which I ended up incorporating. I have the goldenrod crisscrossing the page with the haiku's lines fitting the curve of the stalks. The black bird is on one stalk. He's got one leg stretched out, and the other, short, held up to his chest. That's how they balance.
I'm not a birdwatcher. I've just always loved nature. Here at Syracuse University, I miss a lot of that. People from the city going to SU think of Syracuse as the country, but to me it is the opposite.