Saturday, April 21, 2018

I was thinking back to a time when my personal library contained more than a few poetry books by Gary Snyder.

Gone now but still in my thought to possibly collect a used book or two, maybe Turtle Island, Cold Mountain Poems or Rip Rap once again.

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.