Gary Snyder: 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.

From Turtle Island, copyright 1974 Gary Snyder. Reprinted here from the University of Illinois English Department. For educational use only.

.

Gary Snyder (born 1930) is a poet often associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance. He is also an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. He has been described as the “poet laureate of Deep Ecology.”