As For the Poets

As for poets
The Earth Poets
Who write small poems;
Need help from no man.

The Air Poets
Play out the swiftest gales
And sometimes loll in the eddies.
Poem after poem,
Curling back on the same thrust.

At fifty below
Fuel oil won't flow
And propane stays in the tank.
Fire Poets
Burn at absolute zero
Fossil love pumped back up.

The first
Water Poet
Stayed down six years.
He was covered with seaweed.
The life in his poem
Left millions of tints
Different tracks
Criss-crossing through the mud.

With the Sun and Moon
In his belly,
The Space Poet
Sleeps.
No end to the sky--
But his poems,
Like wild geese,
Fly off the edge.

A Mind Poet
Stays in the house.
The house is empty
And it has no walls.
The poem
Is seen from all sides,
Everywhere,
At once.

-- Gary Snyder

Bedrock

for Masa

Snowmelt pond     warm granite
we make camp,
no thought of finding more.
and nap
and leave our minds to the wind.

on the bedrock, gently tilting,
sky and stone,

teach me to be tender.

the touch that nearly missed--
brush of glances--
tiny steps--
that finally cover worlds
                of hard terrain.
cloud wisps and mists
gathered into slate blue
bolts of summer rain.

tea together in the purple starry eve;
new moon soon to set,
why does it take so
long to learn to
love,
       we laugh
                      and grieve.


-- gary snyder

I Went Into The Maverick Bar

I went into the Maverick Bar
In Farmington, New Mexico,
And drank double shots of bourbon
                                  backed with beer.
My long hair was tucked up under a cap
I'd left the earring in the car.

Two cowboys did horseplay
                                   by the pool tables,
A waitress asked us
                                   where are you from?
a country-and-western band began to play
"We don't smoke Marijuana in Muskokie"
And with the next song,
                                   a couple began to dance.

They held each other like in High School dances
                                    in the fifties;
I recalled when I worked in the woods
                                    and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
That short-haired joy and roughness--
                                   America--your stupidity.
I could almost love you again.

We left--onto the freeway shoulders--
                                    under the tough old stars--
In the shadow of bluffs
                                     I came back to myself,
To the real work, to
                                      "What is to be done."

~Gary Snyder