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“The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 1879 – 2 Aug 1955)
There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.
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He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.
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It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,
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How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,
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For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:
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The exact rock where his inexactnesses
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,
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Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.