How Will We Feel 20 Years From Now

[UndoingTheLaces]

When I was in college we learned the poem Looking at Pictures to Be Put Away by Gary Snyder and there is something so beautiful and compelling about it that it has stayed with me all these years. A while ago it struck me that it also reminds me of the sample of spoken words in I Can't Wait, where it says "How will we feel 20 years from now". So, I thought I'd share. I wonder if the poem was an inspiration to Stevie in writing these words.


Looking at Pictures to Be Put Away

by Gary Snyder

Who was this girl
In her white night gown
Clutching a pair of jeans

On a foggy redwood deck.
She looks up at me tender,
Calm, surprised,

What will we remember
Bodies thick with food and lovers
After twenty years.

"Looking at Pictures to Be Put Away" by Gary Snyder, from The Back Country. © New Directions, 1957.