Explanation by Wallace Stevens

"Explanation" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was first published in 1917, so it is in the public domain in the United States.

Commentary
This poem may be an explanation of the difference between conventional decoration and artistic imagination, the latter represented, as Buttel proposes, by an allusion to Chagall and the otherworldly charm of his paintings.