[New-Poetry] from the Writer's Almanac

[Anny Ballardini]

Poem: "Above Pate Valley" by Gary Snyder, from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems. © Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers, 2003. Reprinted with permission. (buy now) 

Above Pate Valley 

We finished clearing the last
Section of trail by noon,
High on the ridge-side
Two thousand feet above the creek
Reached the pass, went on
Beyond the white pine groves,
Granite shoulders, to a small
Green meadow watered by the snow,
Edged with Aspen-sun
Straight high and blazing
But the air was cool.
Ate a cold fried trout in the 
Trembling shadows. I spied 
A glitter, and found a flake
Black volcanic glass-obsidian-
By a flower. Hands and knees
Pushing the Bear grass, thousands 
Of arrowhead leavings over a
Hundred yards. Not one good
Head, just razor flakes
On a hill snowed all but summer,
A land of fat summer deer, 
They came to camp. On their
Own trails. I followed my own 
Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,
Pick, singlejack, and sack
Of dynamite.
Ten thousand years.



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Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star! 
Friedrich Nietzsche 
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