Morning River

Usually this is a trail head we bypass on our way to the cool, refreshing,deep, rocky river.  Barely glance at it.  But on this warm winter morning it was exactly the trail head we were aiming for.  To explore a tributary along one of my favorite rivers.  To see it in a different season.  To smell the dampness and cool air instead of the dry dustiness we are used to in this area.  To feel the cool vapor rising up from the river instead of plunging into the cold water.  A refreshing walk before we headed back down, out of the mountains, to the valley and city and shore.   

Winter's View

   The Uses of Light 

It warms my bones

    say the stones

                                                 I take it into me and grow

                                                 Say the trees

                                                 Leaves above

                                                 Roots below

                                                 A vast vague white

                                                 Draws me out of the night

                                                 Says the moth in his flight-

                                                 Some things I smell

                                                 Some things I hear

                                                 And I see things move

                                                 Says the deer-

                                                 A high tower

                                                 on a wide plain.

                                                 If you climb up 

                                                 One floor

                                                 You'll see a thousand miles more.

                                                  Gary Snyder