He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters.
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
--The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds--
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, the day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."
--Gary Snyder
I first heard Gary Snyder read this poem as part of a sequence in the 1960s. You can see and hear him read it in the documentary film, "The Practice of the Wild," which is included as a DVD with the book The Etiquette of Freedom. Gary Snyder turned 90 in May.
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