Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Gary Snyder’s "On San Gabriel Ridges" is a poem of interwoven time, memory, and the natural world. The title places the poem in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California, a landscape of rugged ridges, chaparral, and wildlife. The poem itself drifts between physical sensations, dreamlike recollections, and ecological awareness, creating a tapestry where human connection and natural cycles merge.

The poem opens with a vision of softness and simplicity: "I dream of— / soft, white, washable country clothes." The phrase "I dream of" signals an entry into a liminal space, where sensory details and memories blend. The clothes, "soft, white, washable," evoke purity, ease, and a connection to rural life. This image contrasts with the rugged, untamed ridges of the San Gabriel landscape, suggesting a desire for comfort amid the wild.

The next phrase, "woven zones," is both ambiguous and evocative. It could refer to textiles, landscapes, or even relationships—things that are structured yet organic, where different threads intertwine. This idea of weaving recurs throughout the poem, reinforcing the sense that everything—nature, memory, love, decay—is interconnected.

The scene then shifts to direct, tactile engagement with the land: "scats up here on the rocks; seeds, stickers, twigs, bits of grass on my belly, pressed designs—" Snyder’s characteristic attention to detail grounds the poem in the immediate experience of lying on the earth. The "scats," likely from foxes or other wildlife, signal the presence of nonhuman life, while the "seeds, stickers, twigs" mark an intimate contact between body and land. The phrase "pressed designs—" suggests that the earth leaves an imprint on the speaker, much like a memory or experience leaves its mark on the mind.

This moment of physical connection leads into a sudden shift toward recollection and love: "O loves of long ago hello again." This line collapses time, bringing past relationships into the present, as if the landscape itself is a portal to personal history. The greeting, "hello again," suggests both joy and recognition, an acknowledgment that love—whether romantic, familial, or communal—is never entirely lost.

The following lines expand this idea into a vision of intricate human connection: "all of us together with all our other loves and children / twining and knotting through each other—" The language of "twining and knotting" reinforces the earlier image of "woven zones," portraying human relationships as something complex, tangled, yet unified. The phrasing suggests that past and present relationships are not linear but interlaced, forming a web that persists even as individual moments fade.

Then, the poem reaches a point of completion: "intricate, chaotic, done." The contrast between "intricate" and "chaotic" acknowledges both the beauty and disorder of life’s entanglements, while "done" signals a kind of resolution, as if the speaker has arrived at a place of acceptance.

Snyder then shifts again, this time into a dynamic, elemental image: "I dive with you all and it curls back, freezes; the laws of waves." This passage conveys movement—diving into memory, into connection—but also a natural inevitability. The "laws of waves" govern both water and time; moments swell, break, and recede, always returning in new forms. The image of "freezing" suggests a crystallization of experience, a moment held in suspension before dissolving again.

The next lines anchor this ephemeral vision in the landscape: "as clear as a canyon wall / as sweet, as long ago." The clarity of the canyon wall evokes permanence, solidity—something untouched by time. Yet the comparison to "sweetness" and "long ago" adds a nostalgic tone, blending physical geography with the emotional terrain of memory.

The poem closes by returning to nature’s cycle: "woven into the dark. / squirrel hairs, squirrel bones crunched, tight and dry in scats of fox." This final image completes the cycle of life and decay. The "squirrel hairs, squirrel bones" found in fox scat remind the reader of nature’s interdependence, where life is continuously broken down and repurposed. The phrase "woven into the dark" suggests that this process—like memory, like love—is absorbed into something larger and ongoing, part of the fabric of existence.

"On San Gabriel Ridges" moves seamlessly between physical engagement with the landscape, reflections on love and connection, and the ecological realities of life and death. Snyder’s ability to weave these elements together—human and nonhuman, past and present—reflects his broader poetic vision, where nothing is truly separate. The poem’s structure mirrors the natural processes it describes: experience accumulates like seeds on the skin, relationships twine like roots, memories return like waves, and ultimately, everything is woven into the dark, returning to the earth.

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