I Went Into the Maverick Bar

by Gary Snyder, whose birthday was the 9th. 76!

I went into the Maverick Bar
In Farmington, New Mexico.
And drank double shots of bourbon
		backed with beer.
My long hair was tucked up under a cap
I'd left the earring in the car. 

Two cowboys did horseplay
		by the pool tables,
A waitress asked us
		where are you from?
a country-and-western band began to play
"We don't smoke Marijuana in Muskokie"
And with the next song,
		a couple began to dance. 

They held each other like in High School dances
		in the fifties;
I recalled when I worked in the woods
		and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
That short-haired joy and roughness –
		America – your stupidity.
I could almost love you again. 

We left--onto the freeway shoulders--
		under the tough old stars--
In the shadow of bluffs
		I came back to myself,
To the real work, to
		"What is to be done."

What Happened Here Before

by Gary Snyder

One of my favorites.

— 300,000,000— 

First a sea: soft sands, muds, and marls
	— loading, compressing, heating, crumpling,
	crushing, recrystallizing, infiltrating,
several times lifted and submerged,
intruding molten granite magma
	deep-cooled and speckling,
		gold quartz fills the cracks— 

— 80,000,000— 

sea-bed strata raised and folded,
	granite far below.
warm quiet centuries of rains
	(make dark red tropic soils)
	wear down two miles of surface,
lay bare the veins and tumble heavy gold
	in streambeds
		slate and schist rock-riffles catch it –
volcanic ash floats down and dams the streams,
	piles up the gold and gravel—