Gary Snyder

May 1996

For/From Lew

Lew Welch just turned up one day,
live as you and me. “Damn Lew” I said,
“you didn’t shoot yourself after all.”
Yes I didn’t he said,
and even then I felt the tingling down my
back.
“Yes you did too” I said—I can feel it now.”
“Yeah” he said.
“There’s a basic fear between your world and
mine. I don’t know why.
What I came to say was,
teach the children about the cycles.
The life cycles. All the other cycles.
That’s what it’s all about, and it’s all forgot.”

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 of 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.”