Week X

"Rip Rap"

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.

-Gary Snyder

“Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,

The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:

The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,

The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.

The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain

The pine sings, but there's no wind.

Who can leap the world's ties

And sit with me among the white clouds?” 

-Gary Snyder