The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

This poem by William Carlos Williams (1923) has always been one of my favorites.  When I'm driving and looking, I often say it to myself.

It has often been parodied by other writers, but it almost calls out for copying, doesn't it?

so much depends
upon

a blue chipped
colander

filled with red
berries

dripping underneath with
water.

or:

so much depends
upon

my favorite blue
Le Pen

its point pushing into
white paper

When asked what the poem means, here is what William Carlos Williams said:

["The Red Wheelbarrow"] sprang from affection for an old Negro named Marshall. He had been a fisherman, caught porgies off Gloucester. He used to tell me how he had to work in the cold in freezing weather, standing ankle deep in cracked ice packing down the fish. He said he didn’t feel cold. He never felt cold in his life until just recently. I liked that man, and his son Milton almost as much. In his back yard I saw the red wheelbarrow surrounded by the white chickens. I suppose my affection for the old man somehow got into the writing.

In Oregon last fall, I photographed a pink wheelbarrow on an early morning drive through the Columbia River valley. I think  it was filled with pumpkins.  Or maybe apples.

But when I look back at the picture, I notice that it is empty, a vessel that has potential to carry pumpkins or apples, and I notice that it is glazed, not with rain water but with dew.