Poetry Archives | The Land West of Long Mountain Project

The Fabled Land of the Three Frontiers

“From dark to dawn and dawn to dark again. At night, he wakes in dark and, straining his face against the hood, he believes he sees starlight. Dawn, and they have him up on his feet, walking. Finally, on that afternoon, they reach the foot of the snow mountains. The fabled land of the three frontiers, where the Pamirs and the Karakorum meet the Hindu Kush at the westernmost end of the Himalaya on the roof of the world and the mightiest mountain ranges on earth wed and become one.

Their journey has ended, though his odyssey into the frontier of his true country has only begun.”

The Journey

“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice—though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do…”

In the second issue of “In Pursuit of the Sublime,” a poetry project by The Land West of Long Mountain, we read Mary Oliver’s celebrated poem “The Journey” for the fierce beauty of its language and the profound power of its insight. Both wise and inspiring, but never coddling, “The Journey” is a poem that can help guide us all, both along the roads of the world and through the greater journey of life. The poem is presented alongside photography from Joseph’s own travels and journeys in Asia.

In Pursuit of the Sublime

In this first edition of “In Pursuit of the Sublime Poetry Project,” we journey with Kahlil Gibran’s seeker up the eternal holy mountain, four times through the course of three thousand years, in pursuit of God. Along our journey, we learn about the meaning of patience and perseverance and about the true relationship between life and Life’s Creator. In this way, we unearth both wisdom of the heart and fulfillment of the spirit, and we come to discover joy, to experience the divine and to behold the beauty of creation everywhere on earth.

An Open Letter to My Fellow Americans

In this open letter and peace essay composed in January 2020, author Joseph Modugno makes an appeal against partisanship in America and against war with Iran in Asia. At the dawn of the new decade, Joseph calls on his country and on humanity to give up fear and forever war and to put our great faith and deep belief as human beings not in the force of war but in the power of peace.

Ultimately and finally, though: this long, lyric essay and open letter aspires to inspire humanity, all human beings on earth, to shrug off the shackles of ignorance and fear and the manacles of war and violence, to let go of hate and fear and pursue enlightenment, wisdom, open-heartedness and our higher moral genius and cosmic consciousness by practicing the way of the white clouds, by daring to embark on the eternal hero’s journey, and by celebrating and singing out of our collective ecstatic love the poetic praise of everything under the sun.