Tuesday Poem

For All

Ah to be alive
on a mid-September
morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack
on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.

Rustle and
shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as
toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart
music,
smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge
allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon
dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful
interpenetration for all.


by Gary Snyder