Yin and Yang

Yin and Yang

It is spring once more in the Coast Range

 Warm, perfumed, under the Easter moon.

 The flowers are back in their places.

 The birds are back in their usual trees. 

The winter stars set in the ocean.

 The summer stars rise from the mountains. 

The air is filled with atoms of quicksilver.

 Resurrection envelops the earth.

 Geometrical, blazing, deathless,

 Animals and men march through heaven,

 Pacing their secret ceremony. 

The Lion gives the moon to the Virgin.

 She stands at the crossroads of heaven,

 Holding the full moon in her right hand,

 A glittering wheat ear in her left.

 The climax of the rite of rebirth

Has ascended from the underworld

Is proclaimed in light from the zenith.

In the underworld the sun swims 

Between the fish called Yes and No.

---Kenneth Rexroth

From his early wanderings (working in Pacific Northwest forests, hitchhiking across America, exploring South America on a tramp steamer and meeting avante garde artists in Europe) to his intense interest in Asian poetry and art, and his political and philosophical stances, Kenneth Rexroth in the 1930s and 40s was the prototype for the California poets of the 1950s and 60s.  In fact many of them met each other either at Rexroth's home or by other connections to Rexroth.  He was the master of ceremonies at the famous Six Gallery reading that introduced Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure and other Bay Area poets to the world, as well as jump-starting the Beat era.  He died in 1982.