The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

Wallace Stevens


A similar poem to July Mountain, which the below woodcut's title took a phrase from.

July Mountain by Wallace Stevens

 Vermont throws itself together.

                                                                 July Mountain

          We live in a constellation

        Of patches and of pitches.  

                                    Not in a single world, 

            In things said well in music,

        On the piano, and in speech,

        As in a page of poetry--

        Thinkers without final thoughts

        In an always incipient cosmos,

        The way, when we climb a mountain,

        Vermont throws itself together.

  

          Wallace Stevens