It’s spring, I’ve been back in Oregon for two days, my hiking shoes are getting nice and muddy, and this poem of Gary Snyder’s sings to it all, even if it is about a mid-September morn. May your day hold sunshine, laughter, and love!

 For All

Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.