Softly Snowing Evening, Missoula, Montana,

A peaceful scene worth the pause in an evening walk: The alley streetlight focused at center stage, highlighting snow quietly sifting through upper branches, shadows softening the edges of lesser characters waited in the wings.

Tenacious, East Missoula, Montana

A long time past, some bold soul passing marked their unique print on this old neighborhood fence. And through all the weathering years, their mark held fast and declared their nameless influence to any traveler of alleys and paths less taken.
 
And so it is with those who love, in everyday deed and truth. Even if their name escapes memory, their strong example leaves a clinging and distinct imprint, un-erased by life’s roughest seasons. When threatened by discouragement and status quo, we can choose to follow the trail they've marked toward undeterred truth, and be heartened.
So provoked, the road we travel is forever altered, and we are ever thankful.
 
Happy Valentine's Day.

Stumped, Salmon Lake, Montana

"I fell in love with a tree stump. 
A quite curious stump was he. 
No branches to thump. 
No fall leaves to see. 
But a very special stump was he..."  

Yes, we're easing you into tomorrow's love-liness fest. (Go buy dark chocolate - now! before it's too late!) 

Click here to keep reading the rest of Dane Smith-Johnsen's quirky heart-on-sleeve poem, "I Fell In Love With A Tree Stump".

Winter Blue Wall, East Missoula, Montana

“All things on earth point home… sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.”   -Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (1900-1938)

Snow Flower, East Missoula, Montana

Today’s snowflowers seem well accented by this graceful erasure poem created by Annette Robichaud out of text from the novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. The feel is similar to haiku's sparse beauty, albeit longer. 

the shoes would carry us

to the women’s chambers
my aunt began to teach me
I was diligent
she was diligent
bird prints in dust
bird prints in dust
our characters are phonetic in nature
bird prints in dust
were an erased spell
　
See more on this art form here in Annette’s May 2013 post at Hinged Journal of Converging Arts.

Grounded - Pine Cones, East Missoula, Montana

The lean, graceful form of haiku elevates the commonplace, makes you consider from another perspective.
Here’s one for today’s photo, by
Jeremy Kingsley.
  Born again pine tree
Your scent is of wood.
Your parents drop you to ground,
new life will be born....


Read some humour-dusted reality winter prose by Jeremy here.

Birches Brush the Winter Sky, Missoula, Montana

"Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen."

- From "Birches" by Robert Frost

Read further thoughts on this poem here.