The Idea of Order at Key West

She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind Of man’s imagination; it was not The water that was on the sea.

The sea stood like the heavens grow in line, The silence rising into voice, From the sea-born air that filled What she would sing; outside, a place The sea made from the heart of thoughts, She sang and sang, The sea had an idea, a final design.

The shadow of the land, beneath, An island rising toward the skies, Her song connected all the eyes Of men who listened to the sea.

The sea’s order formed a sense, It opened in its motion, The voice of an unremembered past, That became the present here, As light from the sun fell on the sea.

— Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at Key West”

• Wallace Stevens