Three weeks early

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A Poet’s Message

Their shadows silent in the dark,
His people’s future dim,
The empty page, white and stark
No words of hope from him.

Then on a breeze, small flakes of white
Lit dimly by a star,
Descended from the dark of night
And settled near, and far.

Upon the dawn the poet’s eye
Awakened by the snow,
Saw scenes from magic days gone by
Of beauty here below.

With fingers stiffened from the cold
He grasped his pen at last,
And on a page in letters bold
Scribed splendor from the past.

Words of wisdom, a phrase of mirth
Of meadows bright with verdant wealth,
The beauty of our Mother Earth
Her bygone days of vibrant health.

Hope kindled once again,
Heart to join the fight anew.
His message to the hearts of men:
“Within the wilderness, renew”.

(Maybe today it is time to consider something that John Muir said over a century ago, that going to wilderness is going home.)

Winter moss, 4

In two previous posts about moss, the subjects were very small, about the size of golf balls. Today the targets were much larger. The moss in the first photo is only about six inches long, but the rest are all quite large, roughly two feet or so across. These reside on large rocks near the river, just above the water, and they struck me because of their diversity  of color, ranging from bright green to gold and a blend everything in between.

 

From about the middle of May through the middle of June, these will all be under the water of the spring snow melt, and yet they seem to suffer no harm.

Six word memoir

My friend Sandy at My Inner Edge tagged me for a new meme. It’s a six word memoir, inspired by Hemingway, who once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. He came up with: For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Here are the meme rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4 .Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

I found this meme to be quite an interesting one to consider. Here’s my entry:

“Look at what’s outside the cities!“

I tag Wolf at Irrelevant cheetah, Silken at Did You Know?, Pinhole at Pinhole’s Blog, Lori at Random Musings to participate if you would like to. (And anyone else who wishes to join in is invited!)

Two lookouts

For me, old lookout towers hold a sort of mystique, especially in winter, and I was pleased that from the highest point of yesterday’s hike it was possible to take long range photos of two different ones. At a range of eight miles, Big Hole Lookout was visible atop Big Hole Peak (in the Cabinet mountains).

In August 2007, in the smoke of the Chippy Creek fire, I took this close-up photo of the building,

and this one was taken while ascending the trail on the same day.

About 30º to the left of Big Hole, the Eddy Mountain tower sits cold and white at eleven miles away atop Eddy Peak (in the Coeur d’Alene mountains).

Both are cold and white and lonely this time of year. Snowmobiles are not permitted in either place and avalanche danger is high on the slopes below them, prohibiting even snow shoe travel. I felt fortunate to be able to approach them with the camera lens.

Lunch spot

We all have those places we especially like to go to for lunch. Today I went to one of mine. It took three hours on foot to get there, but it wasn’t crowded and so there was no need for a reservation. The lunch was just a sandwich and a long drink from a canteen, but I’ll go back again.