Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout
By Gary Snyder
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
Gary Snyder, “Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout” from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems. Copyright © 2003 by Gary Snyder. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint Press.
Source: No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992)