Reflections on a Rainy Season

The jazz of
Late night streets and all these people
Springs from the same love
And cool eyes now
as then.

Granite sierras, shelves of books,
Holy teachings, scatter
Aimlessly tumbling through
Years and countries

from The Rainy Season by Gary Snyder

At a certain point, intertextuality is no longer a matter of choice. Whitman, Han Shan, Akhamatova - it's the same vein of precious metal that runs through all their poems. No one owns the words of truth nor the spirit that fills them to the point of breaking. After the first Poet there can be no other; the rest of us are merely translators of a far more compelling work.