Drop of Hope Blooms - Missoula, Montana

"And even though I no longer really knew what it was, I felt it: a drop of hope. The fog surrounding my life rolled back another inch, and a sliver of blue sky peeked through." -When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, p.135

Sun-kiss Burns Off the Fog - East Missoula, Montana

As much as I dread driving in it, I love the beauty fog brings - it softens everyday realities, and  graces the trees with an other-worldly reminder .

Sunday Morning’s Quiet Fog - Missoula, Montana

drive through fogged in streets - 
wintry brisk, this quiet town -
to grandness unveiled  

World Without End - Missoula, Montana

"As it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be : world without end. Amen."- From The Book of Common Prayer

Freight Train Into Fog - Missoula, Montana

"....Well every time I fell behind, I could not get ahead.
I wish someone would pull the lever and give me a little sand.
 
And every time I slip behind, even further back,
I wish some switch man would come out of the fog and change my track..."
 
- From "Freight Train" by Alan Jackson

Into the Fog - Missoula, Montana

"...The reveries of ruins asked: “Will no  

one come?” The skeletons of trees inquired:  

“And who are you, forever on the go?”..."

- From 'In the Fog' by Giovanni Pascoli, as translated by Geoffrey Brock

Foggy Winter Weeds - Missoula, Montana

“What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness?

Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”- Gerard Manley Hopkins: 1881  'Inversnaid'

December Charms - Missoula, Montana

"...How swift spring-summer-autumn drift

To epitaphs scrawled on a gift

Of moment-gold we cannot hold

For Time is insistent and bold

…and strips the bud that broke and thrilled

The limb where spring and summer spilled

To winds of phantom, freight-like train

That brings December once again

It rumbles from wide open skies

And showers silver sparkle-sighs

To eventide once dull and brown

December is November’s crown"

- From "December...again" by © Janet Martin

Ponder Janet's full poem here - your soul will thank you.

Lichen The Neighborhood - Missoula, Montana

"There are often inquiries about cultivating lichens...Alas, there's no reliable way anyone has found to keep lichens going once they've been relocated... We can't tame lichens; as Irwin Brodo has said, in Lichens of North America, "...lichens are the essence of wildness." " - Stephen Sharnoff, in his essay 'Lichens and Oaks: A Deep Partnership'

Winter Red - Missoula, Montana

“Incomparable beauty, the snow

If only it could wait until the autumn leaves fall”

-From English translations of Waka Poems by Minosuke Noguchi (1875-1972).

Noguchi immigrated from Japan to the U.S. in 1898; for 42 years, he farmed in northeast Colorado, then moved in 1948 with his wife to upstate New York.

 

Click here to read more of his calm thoughts, plus a bit more about this poetry form.

Descending Fog, I-90 Roadside, Montana

Fog by Carl Sandburg

THE fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

 

 

 

 

To top off the snow and cold, we've had fog the past couple days.

Arriving at work, I stepped out of my car and felt unseen sparkle on my face, an almost-nothing awakening touch, like that of a baby's fingers exploring a trusted face.