What to Tell, Still
Reading the galley pages of Laughlin’s Collected Poems
with an eye to writing a comment.
How warmly J speaks of Pound,
……….. I think back to —
At twenty-three I sat in a lookout cabin in gray whipping wind
at the north end of the northern Cascades,
high above rocks and ice, wondering
………. should I go visit Pound at St, Elizabeth’s?
And studied Chinese in Berkley, went to Japan instead.
J puts his love for women
his love for love, his devotion, his pain, his causing-of pain,
………… right out there.
I’m 63 now & I’m on my way to pick up my ten-year-old stepdaughter
……….. and drive the car pool.
I just finished a five-page letter to the County Supervisors
dealing with a former supervisor,
……….. now a paid lobbyist,
who has twisted the facts and gets paid for his lies. Do I
have to deal with this creep? I do.
James Laughlin’s manuscript sitting on my desk.
Late last night reading his clear poems —
and Burt Watson’s volume of translations of Su Shih,
……….. next in line for comment.
September heat.
The Watershed Institute meets,
……….. planning more work with the B.L.M.
And we have visitors from China, Forestry guys,
……….. who want to see how us locals are doing with our plan.
Editorials in the paper are against us,
……….. a botanist is looking at rare plants in the marsh.
I think of how J writes stories of his lovers in his poems —
……….. puts in a lot
……….. it touches me,
So recklessly bold — foolish?
to write so much about your lovers
when you’re a long-married man. Then I think,
what do I know?
……….. About what to say
……….. or not to say, what to tell, or not, to whom,
……….. or when,
……….. still.
by Gary Snyder
from Danger on Peaks
Shoemaker-Hoard, 2004