Steady, They Say

Clambering up the rocks of a dry wash gully,
warped sandstone, by the San Juan River,

look north to stony mountains
shifting clouds and sun

--despair at how the human world goes down

Consult my old advisers


"steady" they say


"today"

(At Slickhorn Gulch on the San Juan River, 1999)

--by Gary Snyder, from Danger on Peaks (Shoemaker Hoard)