DAILY PHOTO: Evergreens & Mountains, Karakol NP

Taken in Karakol National Park in 2019

POEM: Evergreens

Evergreens line the trail,
transporting me to a place --
higher and harder --
where one might expect trees
that refuse to yield for seasons.

DAILY PHOTO: Kashmiri Creek Bed

Taken on the Naranag-Sonamarg Trek in August of 2016

DAILY PHOTO: Looming Mountains, Little Building

Taken in the summer of 2018 in the Annapurna Sanctuary

POEM: Down the Valley [PoMo Day 9 – Haibun]

The air was dry and the valley was dry. Tufts of yellow grass clung to the hillside and to the edges of the valley floor -- where they joined with the barren, brown tines of bleak shrubbery. In the riverbed, smooth stones and boulders sprawled to the shoulders, far wide of the feeble stream that flowed at the moment. The water ran gray, having come from the edges of a glacier that scoured its way down a granite channel. And in the "V" far ahead, clouds as thick as the mountains were being lifted and dropped over a snowcapped peak, pretending they'd bring their moisture into this arid landscape.  
mountain clouds
may become your fog, or
may sit in wait

DAILY PHOTO: Andean Scene

Taken in southern Peru about ten years ago

DAILY PHOTO: House on a Hill in the Mountains

Taken in Kashmir in August of 2016.

POEM: Fantastical Forest

Rounding a mountain forest trail
from lee to the wet side,
I walk amid mossy branches
draped thick enough to hide
an ogre, troll, or a dark elf —
let ‘lone the old oak’s eyes.

So many hidden paths diverge,
and me without a guide.

DAILY PHOTO: Terskey Ala-too Range

Taken in July of 2019 in Kyrgyzstan