12 August 2011
Inspiration and Wavering Hope
I have been re-reading Turtle Island (Gary Snyder, 1974). It is not a long book, but it is deeply inspirational for me. Each new reading provokes new thoughts and reflections (which is generally true of Snyder’s work). I truly admire the writer and his writing. Turtle Island may be temporarily ousted from its pride of place from time to time, but it always rises back to the top as my favourite of Snyder’s works.
Several years ago, I used an excerpt of one of Snyder’s poems as the texte of a glosa poem for a poetry course. At the time, I was feeling rather disgusted and depressed about the state of environmentalism in the U.S. While I still find myself similarly frustrated and ‘wavering’ in hopefulness from time to time, I have since become significantly more active in environmental causes and actions outside my personal sphere. This most recent re-reading of Turtle Island prompted me to track down that old glosa poem, so that I could revisit the way I felt after reading ‘As for Poets’ for the first time in a long time…
Inspiration and Wavering Hope
`The life in his poem
Left millions of tiny
Different tracks
Criss-crossing through the mud.`
From `As for Poets`
By Gary Snyder
Deep ecology with Taoist centre–
A new vista unfolds before my disillusioned heart,
and discovery brings profound realizations.
I am an unfinished page, filling through synthesis.
While many are blind, deaf, mute,
the earth writhes with human venom!
Some seek panaceas for their irredeemable consciences;
while one expressed his vision through his words…
With ravenous and undeniable awe, I welcome
the life in his poems.
Buddhist, traveller, teacher, brilliant mind–
Love of life, love of earth, love…
His deeply grounded knowledge and determined life
are examples as I seek my own light-stepping path.
His grasp of the rhythms of earth and human spirit
is embedded in his words– uncanny
how they moved my mind and spirit.
Reading each rising word, each line, I sank.
Those beats, flowing anything but blindly,
left millions of tiny
ripples echoing onto time.
The power in each breath that lingered on his pages,
raw like those wild, restless, and unconformist men,
convince me that some generous passion still is hidden
in human breasts– though some are selfish, inhumane.
The state of nature and of man– both in parallax–
are cause for condemnation not content;
they require us to sacrifice for future while we can.
Like rows of mirrors refract
different tracks
into space and space and space,
so are we reflected down the line with endless relevance.
The torch is flickering while heroes age and die;
this man, too, is failing and sometime will fall.
His thoughts remain to stir me still– and always will;
the surface of that well of words is far from limpid.
My anarchistic optimism strangles angrily on the truth;
yet I, and others, wade stubbornly on with purpose green.
In the end I cannot help but see our hopeful sweat and blood
criss-crossing through the mud.
(August, 2005)
