firebirds

My father would put Stravinsky's Firebird on for us to go to sleep by.

Marc Chagall designed the sets for the 1949 NYC production

bird song, flame, mystery, joy

(Ivan Bilibin folktale illustration)

On "Of Mere Being"

discussion of Wallace Stevens' 1954 poem at Modern American Poetry, UI-Urbana

A gold-feathered bird

Sings in the palm, without human meaning,

Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason

That makes us happy or unhappy.

The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands at the edge of space.

The wind moves slowly in the branches.

The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.