Reaching for the stars

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon
 

a red wheel
barrow 

glazed with rain
water
 

beside the white
chickens.
 

Take a look at the William Carlos Williams when young. Intensity and Idealism come to my mind. And so his famous "The Red Wheelbarrow." IAt first, the poem seems fixed in empirical reality; the image the poem presents is precise and clear. It is much like Haiku. And there is no commentary.  But the opening line requires us to wonder what it is that depends upon the red wheelbarrow and the chickens and the rain in just this particular arrangement. The poem thus requires us to go in thought beyond the material realm to another realm of being.

I have read that the poem was written as the auther, a pediatrician, was attending a young girl sick sick in her bed with fever. He was looking out her window as he waited to see if the fever would break and this is what he saw.