UC Davis: For Thanksgiving: Fall Scenes Set To Poetry

Press release from the University of California, Davis:

November 24, 2020

We know many faculty and staff missed spring and summer on campus, and we thought it would be a shame if you missed our colorful fall as well. So we’re bringing the campus to you, by way of images taken last week by Strategic Communications photographer Gregory Urquiaga. We've interspersed the verses of “Gratitude to Mother Earth,” by Professor Emeritus Gary Snyder. He published the poem in Turtle Island, the collection of poetry for which Snyder won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.

GRATITUDE TO MOTHER EARTH

Poetry by Gary Snyder | Photography by Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day —
and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet
in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing, light-changing leaf
and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind
and rain; their dance is in the flowering spiral grain
in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and silent Owl at dawn. Breath of our song clear spirit breeze in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets, freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk; self-complete, brave and aware in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers; holding or releasing; streaming through all our bodies salty seas in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where bears and snakes sleep — he who wakes us — in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Great Sky who holds billions of stars — and goes yet beyond that — beyond all powers, and thoughts and yet is within us — Grandfather Space. The Mind is his Wife. so be it.

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This press release was produced by the University of California, Davis. The views expressed here are the author’s own.