pome

"The Politicians"

Running around here & there
stirring up trouble and bothering people
a bunch of lushes--
fern leaves and cloud:
the world was so chilly and dark--

Before long that sort
will up and rot all by themselves
and be washed away by the rain
and afterwards, only green fern.

And when humanity is laid out like coal
somewhere some earnest geologist
will note them in his notebook.


-Gary Snyder