Parting with Claude Dalenberg

by Gary Snyder

___________________

Why don’t we get drunk
            sit all night facing the moon
  “opening our hearts”
            as men did long ago?

last night was full moon, but
                        too cloudy.

one bottle of sake
            soon gone.
at lunchtime today you stopped by
your ship sails from Kobe at six.

eight years: San Francisco, the
beaches, the mountains,
                           Japan.

Quiet talk and slow easy pace.
with your rucksack to India,
Europe, return

ease of the world, the light
                           rain

as though we might
somewhere be
            parting again.

is included with comments on Claude in an excerpt from:

Basho, Issa, Kerouac & Snyder
On the Road Haiku
by Emily Evans