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.