Hello Poets,
Disguise, escape and connection. Gary Snyder stepping back into the timeless time, embracing our tough old stars and the real work that beckons beyond the bluff.
Best,
Sam
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 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 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.”
by Gary Snyder, from Turtle Island, 1974