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Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada
My virtue is that I say what I think, my vice that what I think doesn't amount to much.

Sunday, December 04, 2016

Song of the Last Place


Song of the Last Place from Gary Yost on Vimeo.

THE SONG MT. TAMALPAIS SINGS
by Lew Welch
This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go.
Human movements,
but for a few,
are Westerly.
Man follows the Sun.
This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go.
Or follows what he thinks to be the
movement of the Sun.
It is hard to feel it, as a rider,
on a spinning ball.
This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go.
Centuries and hordes of us,
from every quarter of the earth,
now piling up,
and each wave going back
to get some more.
This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go.
“My face is the map of the Steppes,”
she said, on this mountain, looking West.
My blood set singing by it,
to the old tunes,
Irish, still,
among these Oaks.
This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go.
This is why
Once again we celebrate
the great Spring Tides.
Beaches are strewn again with Jasper,
Agate, and Jade.
The Mussel-rock stands clear.
This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go.
This is why
Once again we celebrate the
Headland’s huge, cairn-studded, fall
into the Sea.
This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go.
For we have walked the jeweled beaches
at the feet of the final cliffs
of all Man’s wanderings.
This is the last place. There is nowhere else we need to go.

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