Wind-tossed Sky - Missoula, Montana

Friday evening's clouds were particularly inspiring, with lofty winds re-shaping, hence our multiple pauses - literally in the middle of the (deserted) street - to gaup & point , “Look at that one over there…!”

I figured Gerard Manley Hopkins had some lovely cloud thoughts, and he did not disappoint:

“Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows  flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-

Built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers…”

Please read the rest of the poem here – but be forewarned that his lovely language plummets to earth on the wind as steeply as a hunting bird of prey.

The trajectory rackets on through man’s darkness – but still arrives at hope, via the avenue of redemption, to “immortal diamond”.It’s a lovely pondering read on many angles

Quotes from “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of theComfort of the Resurrection” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89)

Wind-Tossed Sky Over Flathead Lake- Polson, Montana

"And yet these flying fountains of all the rivers of earth, these armed and thundering legions of the storm, that beat down the forests with hail and bury the mountains in snow, and flood the plains with water, go floating over us at vast heights with all their mighty magazines when all our philosophy would require them to sink to the earth."

- Daniel March (1816-1909), "The Balancings of the Clouds," Our Father's House, or the Unwritten Word, 1869