X-Y Intersections - Missoula, Montana

“Language is, then… the horizontal surface or plane, the centre of which is always the consciousness of the writer, as in perspective the center of the bounding circle of the horizon is always the eye of the observer. To this Barthes  adds the writer’s style which “has only a vertical dimension, it plunges into the close recollection of the person…” Together, these two, language and style, function for Barthes as coordinates, the horizontal and the vertical axes, which order the writer’s world: “A language is… a horizon, and style a vertical dimension, which together map out for the writer a Nature, since he does not choose either. The language functions negatively, as the initial limit of the possible; style is a necessity which binds the writer’s humour to his form of expression.” Language and style thus become the Cartesian coordinates, the x-y axes, which in Barthes analytical geometry of literature permits the definition of writing, of created literary form, as the equivalent of geometrical form in the Cartesian sense.” - from ‘Painting and Poetry: Form, Metaphor, and the Language of Literature’ By Franklin R. Rogers, Mary Ann Rogers, pages 100-101

Easy Climbing - South of Helena, Montana

“The vision must be followed by the venture. 

It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.” - Vance Havner (1901-1986)

(Tune in tomorrow for the stepped up view. 

Same bat time, same bat channel.) 

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.