Withered trees abound

(reach for sky but fall to ground).

They who live in the mountains know not of bitumen, toothpaste, or telecommunication. They bathe with pail and hand, sing centuries old hymns by campfire at night, and graze their bristly rice fields the rest of the time. These days they welcome tourists from all over the globe into their lives, the Irish and Japanese and Canadian and me, with curious and open arms. The lifestyle they have known and cultivated for so achingly long looks, to me, sadly moribund.

Another sublime vista.