Ah To Be Alive

Nature is not a place to visit.  It is home.

Gary Snyder

Beneath My Hand and Eye The Distant Hills, Your Body

By Gary Snyder

Is the line. A stream of love
of heat, of light, what my
eye las­civ­i­ous
licks
over watch­ing
far snow-dappled Uin­tah moun­tains
Is that stream
Of power. what my
hand curves over, fol­low­ing the line.
“hip” and “groin”
Where “I”
fol­low by hand and eye
the swim­ming limit of your body.
As when vision idly dal­lies on the hills
Lov­ing what it feeds on.
soft cin­der cones and craters;
-Drum Hadley in the Pinacate
took ten min­utes more to look again-
A leap of power unfurl­ing:
left, right-right-
My heart beat faster look­ing
at the snowy Uin­tah Moun­tains.
What “is” within not know
but feel it
sink­ing with a breath
pushed ruth­less, surely, down.
Beneath this long caress of hand and eye
“we” learn the flow­er­ing burn­ing,
out­ward, from “below”

For All

by Gary Snyder

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.