Thirty years alone at the foot of the mountain, raising vegetables, cutting firewood, talking to the birds and making poems, hasn’t exactly made Judevine Mountain a household word in the poetry academy. Once a friend recommended him to the academy and they all cried, Who’s this Judevine Mountain guy? Another friend — who just happened to be there — said, Everybody in these parts knows who he is. Why, he’s the most famous unknown poet for miles around. The only people here who don’t know who he is, is you! Which, of course, proved to the academy that he didn’t exist at all. And therefore Judevine Mountain was set free to continue on his mountainside, raising vegetables, cutting firewood, talking to the birds and making poems, which he is doing to this very day, in his nonexistent sort of way.
This poem originally appeared in Entelechy International.
