Yosemite

"Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter." - John Muir in a letter to his wife Louie in July 1888

Riprap - gary snyder

Lay down these words

Before your mind like rocks.

place solid, by hands

In choice of place, set

Before the body of the mind

in space and time:

Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall

riprap of things:

Cobble of milky way, straying planets,

These poems, people,

lost ponies with

Dragging saddles--

and rocky sure-foot trails.

The worlds like an endless

four-dimensional

Game of Go.

ants and pebbles

In the thin loam, each rock a word

a creek-washed stone

Granite: ingrained

with torment of fire and weight

Crystal and sediment linked hot

all change, in thoughts,

As well as things.

photos: j. kwon & s. winesett