The titular bird in Bishop’s poem can be read as several symbols—having multiple meanings like this is referred to as polysemic. In Line 4, the sandpiper is described as “a student of Blake,” which can support the reading of the bird as a poet who wants to emulate the visionary British Romantic poet William Blake. Bishop could fill the role of the poet who studies Blake, or she could be commenting on the approach of another poet. More generally, the bird could represent the poetic folly of focusing so strongly on Blake’s ideas (seeing the world in just one grain of sand) that he misses the rest of the world that surrounds him. Additionally, there is some archness to the poem’s tone in that the sandpiper is actually looking for food, and poets—like Blake and Bishop—assign human concerns to it.

The colors in the sand carry symbolic weight. The neutral colors—white, black, tan, and gray—mix to give the overall impression of sandy brown. Looking closely at individual grains, like the sandpiper, allows the observer to see how different colors combine to make a somewhat unified color from a distance. These neutral colors are contrasted with more striking colors, like rose and amethyst.