For the Children by Gary Snyder

Too much smoking, too much drinking, and love all around, is what my past few days have been all about. Adaptation is quite hard to do, considering I got used to a week of too much fun. I slept like the dead yesterday evening when I got back from the writers’ workshop, and slept most of the afternoon today, too.

There are lots of stories to tell.

But I’m in much too much nostalgia right now, and the bed is calling, again. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write without gushing too much, without getting too keyed up. Maybe when I’ve talked to them again, or when I’m done with the blues, or when I’ve unpacked my bag. The clothes are already smelling.

I miss beer and Amang Jun and my cigarettes and not sleeping and oh, my friends, my friends. For now, a poem:

For the Children
Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
The steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light