Fewer, Smaller

Montana greetings from the Vagabond Poet who is just now resurfacing from immersion in mountains and valleys and more mountains and valleys in Glacier National Park. It's a spectacular corner of the country where grizzlies rule and campers are wise to be cautious. We didn't see any of the ursine family in our four days there, but reports came into the campground of encounters -- all of them ending happily for bear and hiker alike. Word from the rangers is that Ursus horribilis is doing well; it's the glaciers that are really suffering. You look out from an overlook at a glacier then down at the roadside exhibit showing what the glacier looked like 10 years ago, 30 years ago. Today's glacier is an icy ghost of its former self. It's in-your-face global warming. It's in-your-eyes cold tears.

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Still, beauty remains, sometimes in the smallest things that often go overlooked. I found my solace in Glacier National Park thus:

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In the Valley of the Shadows of High Mountains

The active ingredient

in spruce trees

is lichen.

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