GARY SNYDER
Riprap
Lay down these words
Before your mind like
rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the
mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf,
or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an
endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each
rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment
linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Above Pate Valley
We finished clearing the
last
Section of trail by
noon,
High on the ridge-side
Two thousand feet above
the creek
Reached the pass, went
on
Beyond the white pine
groves,
Granite shoulders, to a
small
Green meadow watered by
the snow,
Edged with Aspen—sun
Straight high and
blazing
But the air was cool.
Ate a cold fried trout
in the
Trembling shadows. I
spied
A glitter, and found a
flake
Black volcanic
glass—obsidian—
By a flower. Hands and
knees
Pushing the Bear grass,
thousands
Of arrowhead leavings
over a
Hundred yards. Not one
good
Head, just razor flakes
On a hill snowed all but
summer,
A land of fat summer
deer,
They came to camp. On
their
Own trails. I followed
my own
Trail here. Picked up
the cold-drill,
Pick, singlejack, and
sack
Of dynamite.
Ten thousand years.
Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after
five days rain
Pitch glows on the
fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things
I once read
A few friends, but they
are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water
from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
How Poetry Comes to Me
It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light
For All
Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.
Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel.
I pledge allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.
On Top
All this new stuff goes on top
turn it over, turn it over
wait and water down
from the dark bottom
turn it inside out
let it spread through
Sift down even.
Watch it sprout.
A mind like compost.
Hay for the Horses
He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the
barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
sweaty shirt
and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."
From Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder, published by North Point Press. Copyright © 1958,
1959, 1965 Gary Snyder. Online Source
Old Bones
Out there walking round, looking out for food,
a rootstock, a birdcall, a seed that you can crack
plucking, digging, snaring, snagging,
barely getting by,
no food out there on dusty slopes of scree—
carry some—look for some,
go for a hungry dream.
Deer bone, Dall sheep,
bones hunger home.
Out there somewhere
a shrine for the old ones,
the dust of the old bones,
old songs and tales.
What we ate—who ate what—
how we all prevailed.
from Mountains and Rivers Without End, published by Counterpoint Press, 1996. Online Source
Kisiabaton
Beat-up datsun idling in the road
shreds of fog
almost-vertical hillsides drop away
huge stumps fading into mist
soft warm rain
Snaggy, forked and spreading tops, a temperate cloud-forest tree
Chamaecyparis formosiana--
Taiwan hinoki,
hung-kuai red cypress
That the tribal people call kisiabaton
this rare old tree
is what we came to see.from No Nature by Gary Snyder. Copyright© 1992 by Gary Snyder. Online Source
At
Tower Peak
Every tan rolling meadow will turn into housing
Freeways are clogged all day
Academies packed with scholars writing papers
City people lean and dark
This land most real
As its western-tending golden slopes
And bird-entangled central valley swamps
Sea-lion, urchin coasts
Southerly salmon-probes
Into the aromatic almost-Mexican hills
Along a range of granite peaks
The names forgotten,
An eastward running river that ends out in desert
The chipping ground-squirrels in the tumbled blocks
The gloss of glacier ghost on slab
Where we wake refreshed from ten hours sleep
After a long day's walking
Packing burdens to the snow
Wake to the same old world of no names,
No things, new as ever, rock and water,
Cool dawn birdcalls, high jet contrails.
A day or two or million, breathing
A few steps back from what goes down
In the current realm.
A kind of ice age, spreading, filling valleys
Shaving soils, paving fields, you can walk in it
Live in it, drive through it then
It melts away
For whatever sprouts
After the age of
Frozen hearts. Flesh-carved rock
And gusts on the summit,
Smoke from forest fires is white,
The haze above the distant valley like a dusk.
It's just one world, this spine of rock and streams
And snow, and the wash of gravels, silts
Sands, bunchgrasses, saltbrush, bee-fields,
Twenty million human people, downstream, here below.
from No Nature by Gary Snyder. Copyright© 1992 by Gary Snyder. Online Source
Smokey the Bear Sutra
Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings -- even grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
Enlightenment on the planet Earth.
"In some future time, there will be a continent called
America. It will have great centers of power called
such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur,
Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon
The human race in that era will get into troubles all over
its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of
its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature."
"The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings
of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth.
My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and
granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that
future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure
the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger:
and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it."
And he showed himself in his true form of
SMOKEY THE BEAR
·
A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on
his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and
watchful.
·
Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to
the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless
attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;
· His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display -- indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;
·
Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of
slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a
civilization that claims to save but often destroys;
· Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains --
·
With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the
forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of
those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained
vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;
· Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;
·
Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and
needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and
totalitarianism;
·
Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming
free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes;
master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly
chop down the rotten
trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the
leftover trash.
Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the
Bear will
Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or
slander him,
HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.
Thus his great Mantra:
Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
Sphataya hum traka ham nam
"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND
BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED"
And he will protect those who love woods and
rivers,
Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:
And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television,
or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the
enemy out
with his vajra-shovel.
· Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.
· Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
· Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
· Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
· Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.
·
AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT
ENLIGHTENMENT.
thus have we heard.
(may be reproduced free forever)
from Myths and Texts
Felix Baran
Hugo Gerlot
Gustav Johnson
John Looney
Abraham Rabinowitz
Shot down on the steamer Verona
For the shingle-weavers of Everett
the Everett Massacre November 5 1916
Ed McCullough, a logger for thirty-five years
Reduced by the advent of chainsaws
To chopping off knots at the landing:
"I don't have to take this kind of shit,
Another twenty years
and I'll tell 'em to shove it"
(he was sixty-five then)
In 1934 they lived in shanties
At Hooverville, Sullivan's Gulch.
When the Portland-bound train came through
The trainmen tossed off coal.
"Thousands of boys shot and beat up
For wanting a good bed, good pay,
decent food, in the woods -- "
No one knew what it meant:
"Soldiers of Discontent."