Danger on Peaks

by Gary Snyder

  the great bell of the Gion

  one hundred eight times

  deeply booms through town.

  From across the valley

  it’s a dark whisper

  echoing in your liver,

  mending your

  fragile heart.

  (Gion Park, Shrine, & Temple in Eastern Kyoto, named for the park, monastery, and bell of Jetavana in India, south of Shravasti, where the Buddha sometimes taught)

  VI

  After Bamiyan

  AFTER BAMIYAN

  March 2001

  The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsüan Tsang described the giant, gleaming, painted carved-out Buddhas standing in their stone cave-niches at the edge of the Bamiyan Valley as he passed through there on foot, on his way to India in the seventh century CE. Last week they were blown up by the Taliban. Not just by the Taliban, but by woman-and-nature-denying authoritarian worldviews that go back much farther than Abraham. Dennis Dutton sent this poem around:

  Not even

  under mortar fire

  do they flinch.

  The Buddhas of Bamiyan

  Take Refuge in the dust.

  May we keep our minds clear and calm and in the present moment, and honor the dust.

  April 2001

  From a man who writes about Buddhism

  Dear Gary:

  Well, yes, but, the manifest Dharma is intra-samsaric, and will decay.

  — R.

  — I wrote back,

  Ah yes . . . impermanence. But this is never a reason to let compassion and focus slide, or to pass off the sufferings of others because they are merely impermanent beings. Issa’s haiku goes,

  Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sarinagara

  “This dewdrop world

  is but a dewdrop world

  and yet — ”

  That “and yet” is our perennial practice. And maybe the root of the Dharma.

  A person who should know better wrote, “Many credulous and sentimental Westerners, I suspect, were upset by the destruction of the Afghan Buddha figures because they believe that so-called Eastern religion is more tender-hearted and less dogmatic . . . So — is nothing sacred? Only respect for human life and culture, which requires no divine sanction and no priesthood to inculcate it. The foolish veneration of holy places and holy texts remains a principal obstacle to that simple realization.”

  — “This is another case of ‘blame the victim’” I answered. “Buddhism is not on trial here. The Bamiyan statues are part of human life and culture, they are works of art, being destroyed by idolators of the book. Is there anything ‘credulous’ in respecting the art and religious culture of the past? Counting on the tender-heartedness of (most) Buddhists, you can feel safe in trashing the Bamiyan figures as though the Taliban wasn’t doing a good enough job. I doubt you would have the nerve to call for launching a little missile at the Ka’aba. There are people who would put a hit on you and you know it.”

  September 2001

  The men and women who

  died at the World Trade Center

  together with the

  Buddhas of Bamiyan,

  Take Refuge in the dust.

  LOOSE ON EARTH

  A tiny spark, or

  the slow-moving glow on the fuse

  creeping toward where

  ergs held close

  in petrol, saltpeter, mine gas,

  buzzing minerals in the ground,

  are waiting.

  Held tight in a few hard words

  in a dark mood,

  in an old shame.

  Humanity,

  said Jeffers, is like a quick

  explosion on the planet

  we’re loose on earth

  half a million years

  our weird blast spreading —

  and after,

  rubble — millennia to weather,

  soften, fragment,

  sprout, and green again

  FALLING FROM A HEIGHT, HOLDING HANDS

  What was that?

  storms of flying glass

  & billowing flames

  a clear day to the far sky —

  better than burning,

  hold hands.

  We will be

  two peregrines diving

  all the way down

  THE KANNON OF ASAKUSA, SENSŌ-JI SHORT GRASS TEMPLE SUMIDA RIVER

  At the Buddha-hall of Sensō-ji

  hundreds of worshippers surge up the high stone steps,

  into the hall dropping coins in the bin —

  look into the black-and-gold chambers, somewhere a statue

  of Kannon, Kuan-yin, Kwanum, Goddess of Mercy,

  Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva,

  peace and compassion for all in this world-realm

  this particular time,

  old and young people swirl by. Incense in clouds.

  We follow the flow out the south side steps,

  white gravels, and back down the pilgrim

  stone walkway that leads there

  lined with street shops and stalls, packed with

  babies in strollers, old folks in wheelchairs, girls in their tanktops

  back to the gate at the entrance.

  Gold Dragon Mountain, Thunder Gate,

  red tree pillars and sweeping tile eaves —

  back out to the streets: traffic, police, taxis,

  tempura restaurants of Edo.

  Cross to the riverside park space,

  men cross-legged on cardboard under the shade tree

  and step into the long slender riverboat water-bus

  that runs down the Sumida River.

  I came here unwitting, the right way,

  ascending the Sumidagawa, approaching Sensō-ji from the sea.

  Under the Thunder Gate, walking the pilgrim path,

  climbing the steps to

  Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion,

  asking: please guide us through samsara.

  (“Form, sensation, thought, impulse, consciousness,

  are not born, not destroyed,

  without gain, without loss

  no hindrance! Thus no fear.”)

  For all beings

  living or not, beings or not,

  inside or outside of time

  ENVOY

  A Turning Verse for the Billions of Beings

  We have spoken again the unknown words of the spell

  that purifies the world

  turning its virtue and power back over

  to those who died in wars — in the fields — on the seas

  and to the billions of spirits in the realms of

  form, of no-form, or in the realm of hot desire.

  Hail all true and grounded beings

  in all directions, in the realms of form,

  of no-form, or of hot desire

  hail all noble woke-up big-heart beings;

  hail — great wisdom of the path that goes beyond

  Mahāprajñāpāramitā

  (from the Chinese)

  Mount St. Helens, August 1945, by G.S.

  Notes

  “Letting Go”

  The person who was calmly calling radio information in on his two-way radio was Gerald Martin at a site two miles north of Coldwater II station and seven miles from the crater. He was a retired navy radioman volunteer from Southern California. The very first victim of the blast was volcanologist David Johnston, who was on watch at the Coldwater II Observation Post. He radioed the famous message “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!” at 8:32 am on May 18, 1980. His station was vaporized. The viewpoint is now known as Johnston Ridge.

  “Pearly Everlasting”

  “. . . that big party Siddhartha went to on the night he left the house for good” is a reference to a passage in Ashvaghosha’s Acts of the Buddha (Skt Buddha-charita), second century CE, describing the conclusion of an evening’s entertainment in the palace. Siddhartha’s many beautiful companions had finally all fallen asleep on the floor in v
arious relaxed postures. Siddhartha, still awake, paced among them thinking, “Even the liveliest pleasures of privileged young people come to this!” or somesuch, and went down to the stable, got a horse, and rode into the forest. Cutting off his hairdo, practicing yoga and austerities, and learning to meditate, he eventually accomplished realization and became the “Enlightened One”—“The Buddha.”

  “One Thousand Cranes”

  With regard to the sandhill crane color “gray-beige,” the closest color in the Methuen Handbook of Color would be saruk (6E3), from Saruq, an Iranian village where it is a traditional color for rugs. The French derivation is saroque, or saroq.

  “The Great Bell of the Gion”

  The large Gion Park, shrine, and temple complex is one of the loveliest features of the eastern edge of Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. It stretches along the lower slopes of the hills. It is named for the grounds and monastery of Jetavana that were on the outskirts of the ancient Indian city of Shravasti. Jetavana was a favorite stopping place of the historical Buddha: he spent nineteen rainy seasons there. Jetavana was a site of many teachings, and is said to have had a great bell.

  “Sensō-ji”

  This popular Buddhist temple is commonly referred to as the “Asakusa Kannon-dera,” that is, the “Kannon temple of the Asakusa district.” Asakusa means “short grass” as does the “sensō” in “Sensō-ji.” The whole neighborhood, on the right bank of the Sumida River, has long been famous for its countless little shops, temples, parks, and popular amusements.

  In the seventh century three fishermen pulled in their net and found a Kannon image in it. They first enshrined it in a little hut. This was the beginning of what was to become a great temple, the earliest in Edo (old Tokyo). Soon there were many other Buddhist images on the altar besides the first little one (supposedly only 2.1 inches tall) — a Kannon, a Fudo, an Aizen, and much more. All of it went up in flames during World War II. The rebuilt temple has the old-style power and beauty. Throngs of pilgrims and visitors are constantly coming and going.

  Thanks To

  Especially:

  — Carole Koda, ever so

  Jack Shoemaker — comrade and publisher

  Fred Swanson — scientist, philosopher, walker

  Aki Tamura and the people of Oshika village

  Bob Uchida, poet-musician

  Chizu Hamada, for One Thousand Cranes

  Deane Swickard

  Dennis Dutton for his Bamiyan poem

  Eldridge Moores

  Gary Holthaus

  Henry Zenk, for his help with Sahaptin place names and the name “Loowit”

  Isabel Stirling for research help and advice

  Jean Koda

  Jirka Wein, of Praha and the Southern Japan Alps

  Kai Snyder

  Katsu Yamazato of Naha

  Ko Un of Seoul

  Lee Gurga

  Liana Sakeliou of Athens

  Misa Honde of Kobe

  Morio Takizawa of Tokyo

  Nanao Sakaki, for his translation of Issa’s “snail,” nine bows

  Peter Matthiessen

  Satoru Mishima of the Kanto Plain

  Shawna Ryan for ostrich and emu

  Shige Hara

  Steve Antler and Carla Jupiter, and the house above the river

  Steve Eubanks for the Star Fire

  Ursula LeGuin for her fine rare book on Mt. St. Helens, In the Red Zone

  Young poets of Putah-toi, sitting on the summer dust

  Acknowledgments

  Some of the poems in Danger on Peaks have appeared in the following publications. We thank the editors and publishers of these periodicals and books for their good work.

  “Acropolis Back When” — selection as “Acropolis Hill” in Metre no. 7/8 Spring Summer 2000 (England); and Facture 2, 2001.

  “After Bamiyan” — Reed, February 2002.

  “Ankle-deep in Ashes” — Tree Rings no. 16, January 2004.

  “Baking Bread” — Poison Oak broadside, Tangram Press, May 2003.

  “Carwash Time,” “Flowers in the Night Sky,” “Brighter Yellow,” and “To the Liking of Salmon” — Tule Review IV.1, Issue 30, Winter 2003.

  “Claws/Cause” — Shambhala Sun, October 2002.

  “Coffee, Markets, Blossoms” — Facture 2, 2001.

  “Cool Clay” — Modern Haiku XXXIII.3, Autumn 2002.

  “For Philip Zenshin Whalen” — as a broadside by Tangram Press, 2002.

  “How Many?” — Facture 2, 2001.

  “Icy Mountains Constantly Walking” — The Gary Snyder Reader (Counterpoint, 1999).

  “In the Santa Clarita Valley” — Facture 2, 2001.

  “Night Herons” — Where Do I Walk? — ed. Maria Melendez, Brooke Byrd, and Adam Smith. UC Davis Arboretum, 2003.

  “One Thousand Cranes” — The Phoebe, Sierra Foothills Audubon Society, X.03 Vol. 24.6, Nov-Dec 2003.

  “Out of the underbrush,” “Chainsaw dust,” “Hammering a dent out of a bucket,” and “Baby jackrabbit on the ground” — Modern Haiku XXXII.3 Fall 2001.

  “Sensō-ji” and “The Great Bell of the Gion” — Kyoto Review, 2005.

  “Snow Flies, Burn Brush, Shut Down” — Van Gogh’s Ear (Paris) Spring 2002; broadside by Ken Sanders, Dream Garden Books, February 2003.

  “Summer of ’97” — The Gary Snyder Reader (Counterpoint, 1999).

  “To Go” — Orion, July-August 2004.

  “Waiting for a Ride” — The New Yorker, August 2004.

  “What to Tell, Still” — Sulfur 45/46 Spring 2000; and Look Out (New Directions, 2002).

  “Winter Almond” and “To All the Girls Whose Ears I Pierced Back Then” — Salt Lick Quarterly (Australia).

  Audio CD Track Listing

  DISC 1

  1 Book title, PART I MOUNT ST. HELENS

  2 The Mountain 4:46

  3 The Climb 4:05

  4 Atomic Dawn 1:53

  5 Some Fate 1:24

  6 1980 2:38

  7 Blast Zone 8:57

  8 To Ghost Lake 7:88

  9 Pearly Everlasting 3:08

  10 Enjoy the Day 0:47

  PART II YET OLDER MASTERS

  11 Brief Years 9:13

  12 Glacier Ghosts 4:55

  PART III DAILY LIFE

  13 What to Tell, Still 2:52

  14 Strong Spirit 2:39

  15 Sharing an Oyster 3:36

  16 Song of ’97 2:49

  17 Really the Real 4:11

  18 Ankle Deep in Ashes 2:46

  19 Winter Almond 3:25

  20 Mariano Vallejo’s Library 2:22

  21 Waiting for a Ride 2:05

  DISC 2

  PART IV STEADY, THEY SAY

  1 Dr. Coyote 0:36

  2 Claws / Cause 1:15

  3 How Many? 0:49

  4 Loads on the Road 0:42

  5 Carwash Time 0:55

  6 To All the Girls . . . 1:03

  7 She Knew About Art 0:41

  8 Coffee, Muskets, Blossoms 0:44

  9 In the Santa Clarita Valley 0:41

  10 Almost Okay Now 0:58

  11 Sus 0:45

  12 Day’s Driving Done 0:37

  13 Snow Flies, Burn Brush, Shut Down 1:02

  14 Icy Mountains Constantly Walking 1:07

  15 For Philip Zenshin Whalen 1:07

  16 For Carole 0:41

  17 Steady, They Say 0:47

  PART V DUST IN THE WIND

  18 Gray Squirrel 0:43

  19 One Day in Late Summer 1:14

  20 Spilling the Wind 0:53

  21 California Laurel 0:59

  22 Baking Bread 1:06

  23 One Empty Bus 2:15

  24 No Shadow 1:57

  25 Shandel 1:59

  26 Night Herons 1:50

  27 The Acropolis Back When 3:01

  28 The Emu 3:34

  29 The Hie Shrine . . . 2:44

  30 Cormorants 2:08

  31 To Go 1:36

  32 One Thousand Cranes 4:57

&nbs
p; 33 For Anthea Corinne Snyder Lowry 0:58

  34 The Great Bell of the Gion 2:45

  PART VI AFTER BAMIYAN

  35 After Bamiyan 4:35

  36 Loose on Earth 1:07

  37 Falling from a Height, . . . 0:38

  38 Senso-ji 3:05

  39 Envoy 1:12

  Gary Snyder was recorded reading Danger On Peaks by Jack Loeffler in Loeffler’s home in northern New Mexico on November 14 and 15, 2013. Loeffler, who edited and mastered these recordings in his studio, maintains that listening to Snyder read his poetry as one follows along in the book profoundly enhances one’s appreciation of the author’s work.

  GARY SNYDER is the author of 16 collections of poetry and prose. Since 1970 he has lived in the watershed of the South Yuba River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 and a finalist for the National Book Award in 1992, he has been awarded the Bollingen Poetry Prize and the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award.