THE WAY WEST, UNDERGROUND

Sumuinen vuori Oregonissa (Kuvan valokuvaaja tuntematon, ostettu Portlandin kirjakaupasta 1970-luvulla)



THE WAY WEST, UNDERGROUND

The split-cedar
smoked salmon
cloudy days of Oregon,
the thick fir forests.

Black bear heads uphill in
Plumas county,
round bottom scuttling through willows –

The Bear Wife moves up the coast.
where blackberry brambles
ramble in the burns.

And around the curve of islands
foggy volcanoes
on, to North Japan. The bears
& fish-spears of Ainu.
Gilyak.
Mushroom-vision healer,
single flat drum,
from long before China.

Women with drums who fly over Tibet.

Following forests west, and
rolling, following grassland,
tracking bears and mushrooms,
eating berries all the way.
In Finland finally took a bath:
like sweatlodge on the Klamath-
all the Finns in moccasins and
pointy hats with dots of white,
netting, trapping, bathing,
singing holding hands, the while

see-sawing on a bench, a look of love-

Karhu-Björn-Braun-Bear

[lightning rainbow great cloud tree
dialogs of birds]
Europa. ‘The West.’
the bears are gone
except Brunhilde?

or elder wilder goddesses reborn-will race
the streets of France and Spain,
with automatic guns-
in Spain,
Bears and Bison,
Red Hands with missing fingers,
Red mushroom labyrinths;
lightning-bolt mazes,
Painted in caves,

Underground.

(Gary Snyder:Turtle Island. New Directions, 1969-1974. Valitettavasti alkuperäinen tekstin asemointi ei näytä toteutuvan blogissa.)