Open Sky - Missoula, Montana

"...But moments do not pause or linger

Caught in a vortex of wide-open sky..." 

- from "Of July's Fading Fringes" by Janet Martin

Read the full text of this and other evocative verse at Another Porch...A Poetry Blog.

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.

Stairway To, Missoula, Montana

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.