Four Poems for Robin

Siwashing It Out Once in Suislaw Forest


I slept under     rhododendron

All night    blossoms fell

Shivering on a sheet of cardboard

Feet stuck   in my pack

Hands deep    in my pockets

Barely  able    to   sleep.

I remembered    when we were in school

Sleeping together   in a big warm bed

We were     the youngest lovers

When we broke up     we were still nineteen

Now our   friends are married

You teach  school back east

I dont mind     living this way

Green hills   the long blue beach

But sometimes   sleeping in the open

I think back    when I had you.



   A Spring Night in Shokoku-ji


Eight years ago this May

We walked under cherry blossoms

At night in an orchard in Oregon.

All that I wanted then

Is forgotten now, but you.

Here in the night

In a garden of the old capital

I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao

I remember your cool body

Naked under a summer cotton dress.



 An Autumn Morning in Shokoku-ji


Last night watching the Pleiades,

Breath smoking in the moonlight,

Bitter memory like vomit

Choked my throat.

I unrolled a sleeping bag

On mats on the porch

Under thick autumn stars.

In dream you appeared

(Three times in nine years)

Wild, cold, and accusing.

I woke shamed and angry:

The pointless wars of the heart.

Almost dawn. Venus and Jupiter.

The first time I have

Ever seen them close.



        December at Yase


You said, that October,

In the tall dry grass by the orchard

When you chose to be free,

"Again someday, maybe ten years."



After college I saw you

One time. You were strange.

And I was obsessed with a plan.



Now ten years and more have

Gone by: I've always known

      where you were--

I might have gone to you

Hoping to win your love back.

You still are single.



I didn't.

I thought I must make it alone. I

Have done that.



Only in dream, like this dawn,

Does the grave, awed intensity

Of our young love

Return to my mind, to my flesh.



We had what the others

All crave and seek for;

We left it behind at nineteen.



I feel ancient, as though I had

Lived many lives.

And may never now know

If I am a fool

Or have done what my

     karma demands.




~ Gary Snyder