WRECKING THE WORLD ~

G A R Y     S N Y D E R

 DILLINGHAM, ALASKA,
THE WILLOW TREE BAR



Drills chatter full of mud and compressed air

all across the globe,

        low-ceilinged bars, we hear the same new songs



All the new songs.

In the working bars of the world.

After you done drive Cat.  After the truck
           
              went home.
                   
              Caribou slip,

              front legs folded first

              under the warm oil pipeline

              set four feet off the ground —



On the wood floor, glass in hand,

                laugh and cuss with

                somebody else's wife.

                Texans. Hawaiians, Eskimos,

                Filipinos, Workers, always

                on the edge of a brawl —

                In the bars of the world.

                Hearing those same new songs

                                    in Abadan,

                 Naples, Galveston, Darwin, Fairbanks,

                 White or brown,

Drinking it down,


the pain

of the work

of wrecking the world. 


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G A R Y   S N Y D E R


Born in San Francisco in 1930 and after travels, work and life
around the world, Snyder to this day lives a few hours drive
east of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada foothills.