"Makings" by Gary Snyder

I watched my father’s friends

Roll cigarettes, when I was young

Leaning against our black tarpaper shack.

The wheatstraw grimy in their hands

Talking of cars and tools and jobs

Everybody out of work.

the quick flip back

And thin lick stick of the tongue,

And a twist, and a fingernail flare of match.

I watched and wished my overalls

Had hammer-slings like theirs.

The war and after the war

With jobs and money came,

My father lives in a big suburban home.

It seems like since the thirties

I’m the only one stayed poor.

It’s good to sit in the

Window of my shack,

Roll tan wheatstraw and tobacco

Round and smoke.

"Makings" by Gary Snyder from No Nature. © Pantheon Books 1992.