Gary Snyder




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.