Summer Sunset Leafglow - Missoula, Montana

 “…Evening strains to be time’s vást, ' womb-of-all,    home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.
Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west….”
  -from Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

Perfect Golden Gloaming - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"...When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting..."
-  Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885), October's Bright Blue Weather

(The colours really were this perfect!)

 

8:13 PM Mountain Time - Missoula, Montana

Similar Saturday evening views will be available well into August along the Waterworks Trail system above Missoula, MT. 
Self-serve, while they last!

Sunlit Leaf - Missoula, Montana

"Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth." - Roman Payne

(Oh, so especially true on these grey winter days!)

Bare Or Full - Missoula, Montana

"Oh, to be free of myself, 

With nothing left to remember, 
To have my heart as bare 
As a tree in December; 
Resting, as a tree rests 
After its leaves are gone...
But still, oh so still 
While the winds come and go...
And heedless, heedless 
If anyone pass and see 
On the white page of the sky 
Its thin black tracery." 

From The Tree by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

Read the full text of this poignant  poem here.

Winded Woods on Grant Creek - Missoula, Montana

“When the wind blows through a wood, its mass is cut and closed by every leaf, forming a train of jittery vortices in the air” - AliceOswald

Folded Landscape - East of Lincoln, Montana

"You could look out across that folded landscape and every sense you had told only that this was all the world there was." - from Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, p 280

Betwixt - Missoula, Montana

Along my drive home just after 9:00 yesterday evening, the sunset show was well underway, its golden primal donna already resting on the western mountain range. Surprise, surprise! - Summer has committed to its waning hours, closing up shop long before the 10 pm final curtain of end-of-June evenings. 
These golden grasses leaning toward autumn speak their own reminder, echoing this verse by Janet Martin: 

"Alas, alas, our days are as grass
Our wisdom a grain of sand
Alas, alas, the summers pass
As I, like a mute yet stand
Watching time, like phantom infantry
March beyond the hills
Beyond the moon, beyond the sea
Beyond the starry sills..."

Ponder the full poem, 'A Dandelion Seed' here, and Janet's current poetic musings at Another Porch...A Poetry Blog.

Tamarack, Close - Missoula, Montana

Comparing tamarack branches to those of an adjacent green conifer, I noticed the tamarack's distinct needle bunches. On a sturdy and fortunate tree, annual shedding and regrowth may cycle for hundreds of years. On the Montana, Fish, Wildlife and Parks site, retired Livingston biology teacher Lori Micken chronicles ages of some of these stately trees: "Years ago I felled a larch that had died in a fire that raged through the Swan Valley some time in the early 1900s. I counted 350 rings, putting the tree’s origins back to the time of the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia. The fire-scarred behemoths still living in the Swan Valley must now be nearly 450 years old. Ancient tamaracks estimated at more than 900 years old have been reported in some parts of Washington."

Tamarack Trail - Missoula, Montana

I've long been in awe of the tamarack's golden beauty - ever since my juniour high earth science teacher explained how the needles of these bona fide conifers turn yellow in the fall and then drop off, to regrow in the spring. No such a magical tree existed on Alberta's rolling farmland! 
In several sections of the trail up University Peak, our footsteps quieted as we walked the cushy carpet dusted with seeming gold-strewn magic.

Golden Creekside - Corvallis, Montana

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”

― Jim Bishop (1907 – 1987)

Influencing Scenery, Missoula, Montana

The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Culture, The Conduct of Life, 1860

Fall-en: Flathead Lake, Polson, Montana

"Float down
Like autumn leaves
Hush now
Close your eyes before the sleep
And you're miles away
And yesterday you were here with me..."
- Ed Sheeran, from lyrics to "Autumn Leaves"

Aspen Gateway, Missoula, Montana,

All day and night, save winter, every weather,
Above the inn, the smithy and the shop,
The aspens at the cross-roads talk together
Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.

From "Aspens" by Edward Thomas
(read the full poem here)

Warm, Missoula, Montana

“A coat? I don’t need a coat - it’s at least 40 degrees (F) outside!”
 
Spoken by a true Montana outdoorsman, in spite of today’s Brooks Brothers shirt and corporate neck tie.

Chasing the Light, Missoula, Montana

The wide expanse of these golden hills at Missoula’s north end remind me of Wesley’s

great tumbling line from The Princess Bride, “Aaaas… Yoooou….. Wiiiiiish!”.

Golden, Missoula, Montana

Aspen leaves and sunlight married; like so many golden coins, scattered…


If the Sun Were A Tree

If the sun were a tree
Its leaves would be this shining color
And they would drop
Over the toes of my boots
Ankle deep.
When I step
There would be the sound
Of light breaking.
— Tom Hennen