COMING TO KNOW GARY SNYDER






The man will be eighty years next year and to witness the two visual feasts below will be a reminder of what is within our midst. Good direct talk on bio-regionalism, sustainability in the U.S. and abroad, livelihood, family/tribe, forest/fire management, Earth household and poetry. Both presentations come from Snyder's rich past & present habitats — whether at home in the Sierra Nevada, or as a one time resident and student at Berkeley. Listen to the stories.

SABINE MILLER







from bee dance



moth, do eat a few

holes in this sweater

for the spring moon



~



fireflies

dreaming

of

fireflies

dreaming

of

fireflies



~



out-breath

-------grasshopper

-------------jumps



~



grief. . .

-------a spider thread breaks

-------in the wind

I believe Sabine Miller once called us and spoke with Susan. It seems like awhile ago. She sent to me a packet once and had drawn on the outside envelope a bird in flight I carefully cut-out and saved, now pinned near one of the desks where I work. The bird has never stopped showing me movement, freely. A quiet and hidden away poet, like so many of the best are. Seek out those seekers. bee dance is a lovely foldout booklet issued in 2004 from Tribe Press. You can find a copy at Longhouse if you wish.

RYOKAN
(1758-1831)







I'm truly simple
living among trees and grasses.
Don't ask me about illusion or enlightenment.
I'm just an old man who smiles to himself.
I ford streams with these thin legs,
and carry my bag in fine weather.
Such is my life,
but the world owes me nothing.



translated by Dennis Maloney

a contemporary of William Blake and Henry David Thoreau, playmate with children, calligrapher and hermit, here is one of the finest from Ryokan and one of the finest one will ever find of the playful and dead serious discipline. It's all in the thin legs and nothing. From Longhouse we can offer you Ryokan until the cows come home — plus Dennis Maloney's even blend translations, of which the above is one, may be had from the recently released Between the Floating Mist (White Pine, wwwwhitepine.org)

MARCIA ROBERTS






from Autumn’s Slant


hey, vaquero, you got boots
my daddy never got me none
said he bought a pair once wouldn’t do it again
gave me a dollar let me drive the car


when the oil pan breaks on a rock, the father walks home at dusk
a good time for mosquitoes, fireflies, and crickets
kids lie on the lawn, picking at clover, listening
to stories how he shot coyotes from the saddle
and how a mad bull attacked him on horseback


~


longhorns derive from barrenda, the spotted ones
retinto, the reds, and ganado prieto, the fighters

stepping into la corrida

it’s me or you, sucka, let the snot roll off your snout
the blood run off your back onto the sand

los caballeros come from la Mancha y Extremadura
singing God, Glory, Gold, and making marks on cattle’s flanks


~


when the father is old one leg gone
he drives off in a cloud, checking on – S –
vaqueros siempre…..desde el comienzo no somos caballeros…..somos paisanos

moving herds north…..spreading mesquite
along the Chisholm…..all the way to Abilene


~


he didn’t wear a bandana or furry chaps
eat mountain oysters or lasso strays

don’t kid yourself, vaquero, my old man was a cowboy
chewing on a long stem of wheat grass

Lazarillo’s hidalgo picks his teeth on an empty stomach
Hernán Cortéz isn’t the caballero we think

the great warrior lies in Burgos
above the Missouri, the father resides

in sage brush, vaqueros wear tapaderos
and Lakota nod hasta luego

en este lugar . . .
there is no good-bye


~


We live where Muwekma Ohlone lived and danced. Elderberry flutes, bird bone
whistles, split stick clappers kept the beat until men from Sonora rode in.

You can see the end of the rainbow. Dark storm clouds push colors down to the
water, making one final glow.


~


at Farragut North the saxophone man plays Amazing Grace
others huddle on grates around the Corcoran

when the archives guard says there can be no spitting
Peg whispers, we’ll spit in our pockets


~


hollyhocks grow on the south side of gray stucco
mother and daughter cut blooms for a glass basket
and gather oatmeal-shaped seeds
planting them again and again


~


the beauty of the daughter overwhelms her
she wants the child to be her art, herself


~


when the mother dies, the daughter is 54
she looks and feels twelve


~


in a dream she tries to plant grass and flowers
on the east side of gray stucco
her mother tells her
grass never grew here and it never will


~


I cannot cross your name from my book
instead, I buy denim with embroidery and beads

come dine tonight with two lemons
I can make pie or cake
we’ll have wine and salad lasagna perhaps
or curry and rice expresso and Duque de Rivas
our speech syncopated
you remember one thing I remember another

and in the final morning dream
we’ll use the first words when the last words begin

Marcia Roberts is a native of South Dakota. Her books of poetry include Open Eye (Skanky Possum Press) and two fine new books from Effing Press: In the Bird's Breath and Autumn's Slant (effingpress.com). The above first appeared in Longhouse-Origin (sixth series). Marcia makes a home with her husband Len in San Antonio, Texas.

ALBERT SAIJO






LET US INVENT OUR NOBLE SAVAGE SO WE KNOW
ONE WHEN WE SEE ONE — LET US IMAGINE ANEW
THE PERFECTION AT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS
— NOBLE SAVAGE INNOCENT OF DEATH — NOBLE
SAVAGE UNDERSTANDS THE LANGUAGE OF THE
OTHER ANIMALS & TALKS TO THEM & LIVES IN
DEEP PEACE WITH THEM — NOBLE SAVAGE NO
NEED WORK — WITHOUT LABOR NOBLE SAVAGE
FEEDS AT ABUNDANT TREE OF LIFE — NOBLE
SAVAGE EATS AND IS EATEN IN DEEP PEACE —
NOBLE SAVAGE TALKS TO GOD — NOBLE SAVAGE
TRAVELS TO GOD NOT JUST IN SPIRIT BUT
CARNATE AND WHOLE — THEY TALK AT GOD’S
OASIS BENEATH THE IDEAL PALM — THEY TALK
IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANIMALS BARKING
AND TWITTERING — NOBLE SAVAGE NEVER FALL

ALBERT SAIJO is "George Baso" in Jack Kerouac's Big Sur. A native of Los Angeles, Saijo penned the classics The Backpacker, Trip Trap (with Kerouac and Lew Welch) and Outspeaks, a Rhapsody.

PAUL CELAN








Ash-Aura back of
your shock-knotted
hands at the three-corners.

Black Sea old times: here,
one drop,
on
the drowned oar blade,
deep
in the fossilized oath,
surf murmurs.

(up the precipitous
breath rope, in those days,
higher than high,
between two knots of pain—while
the brilliant
Tartar moon rose up to us,
I sunk and I sunk into you.)

Ash
aura back of
you three-corners
hands.

Come from the east, the way in front of you
a crap-shoot, terrifying.

No one
bears witness for
the witness.

BOB ARNOLD









ECO


I chopped down the tree I planted

Cut up and burned as fuel

Carried out its ash to spread