The Man with the Blue Guitar (XII)

XII

Tom-tom, c'est moi. The blue guitar
And I are one. The orchestra

Fills the high hall with shuffling men
High as the hall. The whirling noise

Of a multitude dwindles, all said,
To his breath that lies awake at night.

I know that timid breathing. Where
Do I begin and end? And where,

As I strum the thing, do I pick up
That which momentously declares

Itself not to be I and yet
Must be. It could be nothing else.

---

Wallace Stevens
from The Man with the Blue Guitar, 1937

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Read the complete poem here.

Wallace Stevens biography