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Blackbird Etude

By A. E. Stallings b. 1968

For Craig

The blackbird sings at

the frontier of his music.

The branch where he sat

marks the brink of doubt,

is the outpost of his realm,

edge from which to rout

encroachers with trills

and melismatic runs sur-

passing earthbound skills.

It sounds like ardor,

it sounds like joy. We are glad

here at the border

where he signs the air

with his invisible staves,

“Trespassers beware”—

Song as survival—

a kind of pure music which

we cannot rival.

Source: Poetry (October 2009).

Biography

A. E. (Alicia) Stallings studied classics in Athens, Georgia and has lived since 1999 in Athens, Greece. She has published three books of poetry, Archaic Smile (1999), which won the Richard Wilbur Award; Hapax (2000); and Olives (2012). Her new verse translation of Lucretius (in rhyming fourteeners!), The Nature of Things, is published by Penguin Classics. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and . . .

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