Photo by Julie Russo

  In this excerpt from a Wallace Stevens poem Landscape with Boat, his attempt to find meaning in life
led him to the conclusion that self expression in nature is the closest approximation of the truth.

Landscape with Boat

That he might be truth, himself, or part of it,
That the things that he rejected might be part
And the irregular turquoise, part, the perceptible blue
Grown denser, part, the eye so touched, so played
Upon by clouds, the ear so magnified
By thunder, parts, and all these things together,
Parts, and more things, parts. He never supposed divine
Things might not look divine, nor that if nothing
Was divine then all things were, the world itself,
And that if nothing was the truth, then all
Things were the truth, the world itself was the truth.

Had he been better able to suppose:
He might sit on a sofa on a balcony
Above the Meditterranean, emerald
Becoming emeralds. He might watch the palms
Flap green ears in the heat. He might observe
A yellow wine and follow a steamer’s track
And say, “The thing I hum appears to be
The rhythm of this celestial pantomime.”

City Serene is a non-denominational news service providing the cultural and healing practices of various faith-based groups and artists' for a general audience. Contributors provide their perspectives here to offer solace and invite dialogue with respect to believers of all faiths, as well as non-believers.