Seaman’s Ditty

I’m wondering where you are now

Married, or mad, or free:

Wherever you are you’re likely glad,

But memory troubles me.

We could’ve had us children,

We could’ve had a home—

But you thought not, and I thought not,

And these nine years we roam.

Today I worked in the deep dark tanks,

And climbed out to watch the sea:

Gulls and salty waves pass by,

And mountains of Araby.

I’ve travelled the lonely oceans

And wandered the lonely towns.

I’ve learned a lot and lost a lot,

And proved the world was round.

Now if we’d stayed together,

There’s much we’d never’ve known—

But dreary books and weary lands

Weigh on me like a stone.

Indian Ocean, 1959

Copyright Credit: Gary Snyder, “Seaman’s Ditty” from Left Out in the Rain: New Poems 1947-1985. Copyright © 1986 by Gary Snyder. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint Press.

Source: No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992)