I want to share with you today, as I do my 9-5 job, one of my favorite poems ever, “Hay for the Horses,” by Gary Snyder.

Gary Snyder reading Hay for the Horses

Hay for the Horses

by Gary Snyder

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the 
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
—The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds—
“I’m sixty-eight” he said,
“I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that’s just what
I’ve gone and done.”

I like to think of this poem periodically, to make sure I am doing what I want to do with my life.

It’s tax season. That’s a time I also always wonder if I am doing something worthwhile, or at least not onerous, for my daily bread.

Are you a writer or artisit who’s been bucking hay for 51 years instead of making?

Time to create!

See all about “Hay for the Horses” and Gary Snyder here.