Escape Lines, Missoula, Montana

“…Lined shadows

Resembling thin

Prison bars

Descend to the

Sidewalk below

Where people

Stroll beneath them.

A scratchy song

Cries sadly

From a radio

Where a girl

Whose hair is wet

Soulfully sings

Into her comb….” 

From “Fire Escape” by Roger Singer

Read the entire poem, and others, here.

Dusk Downstream, Missoula, Montana

“A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind  

and floats downstream  

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky….”

From “Caged Bird” By Maya Angelou

Read the entire poem here. 

Swish/Toss, Corvallis, Montana

Another variety of Montana's roadside beauty. Even with a rail fence in between, being near this lovely calmed my busy brain and recalibrated the rest of the day.

“Horses make a landscape look beautiful.”
― Alice Walker
 

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. ”
― W.C. Fields

Cool, Clear Water; East Missoula, Montana

Western Montana evening temps have cooled to about 70 degrees F - perfect campfire weather, barring fire danger restrictions, of course. It doesn't pay to ignore Smokey the Bear's warnings.
Click the text link and sing along with Marty Robbins‘ campfire classic: "Cool...clear...water (water!)".

NorthBound, Shelby, Montana

vernal by joanna dibble
i hear the cranes again
riding the thermals upward
this warming morning
calling and circling, they
fall into the long v shape
an arrow swiftly northbound

Read more from joanna dibble at her Hello Poetry site.

Togetherness, Missoula, Montana

Moral of the Story: If you’re going to get dumped out of your inner tubes before Brennan‘s Wave, it’s sweeter to get dumped out together.

Despite the prevalence of unexpected swims, tubing continues unabated on the Clark Fork River near Missoula, with hundreds of weekend afternoon floaters hitting the water for relaxing respite from summer’s heat.

Beauties of Nature, East Missoula, Montana

“Bless the body. Mine has led me into many scrapes, but I’ve led it into far more. If the imagination were obedient, the appetites would give us very little trouble. And but for our body one whole realm of God’s glory - all that we receive through the senses - would go unpraised.…
I fancy the ‘beauties of nature’ are a secret God has shared with us alone. That may be one of the reasons why we were made - and why the resurrection of the body is an important doctrine.”
C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly On Prayer

Blooms of this river bottom wild potato vine definitely fall in the “beauties of nature“ category. Let the beauties treasure hunt continue amidst our everyday.