Albarrán Cabrera

Japan, 2015. #373. Platinum/Palladium and Cyanotype

Fire at Sea, 1835

Gary Snyder resting in a café near Daitoku-ji temple, where he studied zen. Kyoto, Japan, 1963. Photo by Allen Ginsberg.

I thought, “What a strange thing is man… like in the Bible it says, Who knoweth the spirit of man that looketh upward? This poor kid ten years younger than I am is making me look like a fool forgetting all the ideals and joys I knew before, in my recent years of drinking and disappointment, what does he care if he hasn’t got any money: he doesn’t need any money, all he needs is his rucksack with those little plastic bags of dried food and a good pair of shoes and off he goes and enjoys the privileges of a millionaire in surroundings like this. And what gouty millionaire could get up this rock anyhow? It took us all day to climb.” And I promised myself that I would begin a new life. “All over the West, and the mountains in the East, and the desert, I’ll tramp with a rucksack and make it the pure way.”