Riprap

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
                        placed solid, by hands
In coice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
                        in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
                        riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
                        straying planets,
These poems, people,
                        lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
                        and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
                        four-dimensional
Game of Go.
                        ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
                        a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
                        with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
                        all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

Gary Snyder, Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems