Roaming Rocks or River Bank Ice Scape - Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana

“It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.

There are two other possibilities: 

   one is paperwork, 

     and the other is nostalgia.”

-Frank Zappa

Lovely Moment - Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana

"Sometimes it is enough to be near something lovely.
It doesn't require possession;
 nothing has to come of it,
 nothing need be created from it.
Let its purpose be
 to exist solely as a thing of beauty
 and provide joy."

- From Tony's Wife by Adriana Trigiani, p. 428

Holding Up The Winter Sky - Lolo, Montana

“I prefer winter and fall,

 when you can feel the bone structure

 in the landscape---the loneliness of it---the dead

 feeling of winter.

Something waits beneath it---the whole story doesn't show.”

- Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

Twilight Reflections - Grant Creek, Missoula, Montana

"The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. 
My days of old have vanished - tone and tint. 
They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. 
Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. 
I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll."

-  General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), from his May 12, 1962 Thayer Award Speech

On Value - BItterroot Valley, Montana

"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."
-Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) from Walden

Winter Snow and Sunshine - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

Winter officially - at last! - and there is plenty of poetic odes to this season.

Click here to immerse in some popular winter poetry, including the full text of Douglas Florian's "Winter Eyes", 
and here to appreciate Janet Martin's thoughtful verse for now or any time of year.

"Look at winter
With winter eyes
As smoke curls from rooftops
To clear cobalt skies.

Breathe in winter
Past winter nose:
The sweet scent of black birch
Where velvet moss grows.
Walk through winter
With winter feet
On crackling ice
Or sloshy wet sleet....."
 - from Winter Eyes by Douglas Florian

Authentic Happiness Via Bitterroot Winter Sunrise - Corvallis, Montana

Another glorious Bitterroot Valley view from Big Brother 3, that ponders well with this quote: 

 “Happiness does not lead to gratitude.
  Gratitude leads to happiness.”

- Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast 
(found in A.J. Jacobs’ book, Thanks a Thousand!)