Poem for Sunday and Catoctin Climbs

The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain
By Wallace Stevens

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 inexactnesses
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.

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We spent Saturday in the Catoctin Mountains with Adam and Christine, first at Cunningham Falls State Park, where we hiked to the waterfall and had a picnic among the leaves, then at Catoctin Mountain Park, where we hiked to Hog Rock and the Blue Ridge Summit before we met Paul's parents at the nature center and walked around the Spicebush Nature Trail and the sawmill replica. We tried not to be too upset that Maryland only lost by one point to Penn State, since we did not see any of the game!

















Since the Cozy Inn has closed, much to our regret, Paul's parents took us to dinner at the Mountain Gate Family Restaurant, which does not have anything like Cozy's ambiance nor as many choices, though the desserts were good and we left before the Saturday night gospel choir arrived. Adam had homework to get done, so we took Christine home and brought him back here, where he worked and did laundry while the rest of us watched Doctor Who, which at least has good acting this season.