An American robin, one of the most common New England songbirds.
"At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
"He knew that he heard it,
A bird’s cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind. ..
"Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.''
-- From Wallace Stevens's "Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself". Stevens was arguably, after Robert Frost, the greatest 20th Century American poet. He was also a highly successful insurance executive in Hartford, which for many decades was called
"the insurance capital'' of the world.
