And now for a little 20th century classic American poetry . . . because poetry and baked goods just go so well together . . .

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm


The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.


--Wallace Stevens, 1945



**Stevens was an insurance executive by day, and a brilliantly original American poet by night. So you see, anything is possible. Even creating enduring poetry in the midst of what appears to be a garden variety, middle-aged guy's daily existence.