136 contemporary poetry
people in charge’ (p. 6 ) of the earth. He emphasises that earth ‘has
not evolved solely for our benefi t and any changes we make to it are
at our own risk. This way of thinking makes clear that we have no
special human rights; we are merely one of the partner species in
the great enterprise of Gaia’ (p. 6 ).
‘Little Songs for Gaia’ consists of twenty lyric sections and
presents the ecology of Northern California, sounds from the
immediate landscape, dream visions and the threat to the abun-
dance of Gaia’s biosphere. Snyder presents a panoptic vision of
the landscape, often formed through the eye of a bird of prey. This
position allows not only a cartographic reading of the landscape,
but a comment upon the importance of humanity in the greater
scheme of Gaia’s ecosystem. The hawk ‘dipping and circling’ over
the salt marshes of San Francisco elicits the refl ection upon Gaia’s
‘slow-paced / systems of systems’ (p. 49 ). Snyder comments that
5 , 000 years is all ‘that a human can fi gure’, and the human in
question is framed as the absurd yet potentially destructive ‘grass-
hopper man in his car driving through’ (p. 49 ). In a later lyric the
poet pictures earth’s blue planet: ‘Deep blue sea baby’ (p. 54 ).
Viewed from the ‘Great Bird’s’ perspective, the earth presents a
magnifi cent curve and momentum: ‘Whirl of white clouds over
blue-green land and seas / bluegreen of bios’ (p. 54 ). Snyder also
chides the impulse to chronicle and assume ownership over the
environment:
I’m glad for once I knew
Not to look too much when
Really there
Or try to write it down. (p. 51 )The premise of the earth as a mere construction yard of building
resources is reiterated later in the sequence. The poet hears the log
trucks in the early morning, reminding him ‘of the world that is
carried away’ (p. 55 ). Snyder’s poems and his essays bring to atten-
tion what he has called the ‘art of the wild’ – that is, to see art in the
context of environment and nature. He urges us to see ‘nature as
process rather than as product or commodity... Seeing this also
serves to acknowledge the autonomy and integrity of the nonhu-