Allenspark, Colorado

From a Country Overlooked by Tom Hennen There are no creatures you cannot love. A frog calling at God From the moon-filled ditch As you stand on the country road in the June night. The sound is enough to make the stars weep With happiness. In the morning the landscape green Is lifted off the ground by the scent of grass. The day is carried across its hours Without any effort by the shining insects That are living their secret lives. The space between the prairie horizons Makes us ache with its beauty. Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue To the farthest cold dark in the universe. The cottonwood also talks to you Of breeze and speckled sunlight. You are at home in these great empty places along with red-wing blackbirds and sloughs. You are comfortable in this spot so full of grace and being that it sparkles like jewels spilled on water. -------------------- My thoughts go out to Boulder County, Colorado today where the flooding is causing so much damage to the landscape itself (everything covered in mud) and to the people living there, particularly in the mountains where roads have been washed out and communities isolated. We stopped for  coffee at a lovely cafe in Lyons last summer, now the subject of terrible flooding, unrecognizable. I think of the cafe owner, the kids playing in the sandbox outside and the spectacular drive we took from Lyons into the mountain of Allenspark.  A river flowed in the ravine below as we climbed. Above is a photo from the porch of the cabin we rented. When I read today's poem (above) on the Writer's Almanac, I thought of all who are effected but extreme weather; animals, people, insects, landscape. Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue. Not to mention the hummingbirds that were out in force!