Blackbirds

The blackbird in the poem symbolizes the passage of time. Throughout the verse the blackbird’s presence and impending absence are marked by the narrator. The bird’s movements are juxtaposed to the stillness of the landscape and are seemingly implicated in the natural rhythms of the world itself, as the twelfth canto indicates: “The river is moving. / The blackbird must be flying” (12). The blackbird is both a stark outlier in a stillness, a black emblem etched on white snow, as well as a marker of a sentience and an order other than a human-derived one.

Snow

Snow symbolizes stillness and repose throughout the poem. It is implied that snow falls silently and blankets the mountains and trees with a hushing effect. In this sense it is associated with death, rest, and absence. That the poem mentions autumn and then in the last canto speaks of...