Journal Fragment, March, for Gary Snyder

Journal Fragment, March
for Gary Snyder

Not all good poetry is memorable, and certainly there are memorable poems that are merely ditties, but the best poets usually provide us, at the least, with images, lines, or stanzas that ring in the mind in particular contexts. I can’t see a wild mushroom without thinking “shapes diverse and colorful” and hearing “multiple fibers.” Lately I’ve been remembering Gary Snyder’s “Money Goes Upstream,” about those who

Twist arms, get fantastic wealth,
Hurt with heavy shoulders of power,
And then drink to it!

On car trips I see “the dead by the side of the road.” If I think of naming I hear “foxtail pine.” For shamanism it’s “singing, the proof.”

And on other days, it’s just
 turquoise blue.