Tiny Sweetness

The grandeur of Rocky Mountain National Park often overwhelms me. The power of the water, the inscrutable timelessness of the rocks, the beauty of the tiny flowers -- the poetry of it all sends my spirit skyward.

And just when I think surely I've seen it all, something new comes my way.

This morning, delight came from these tiny ducklings. Still soft with downy feathers, they paddled in Nymph Lake, as Mom (a mallard) showed them how to snatch even tinier seeds from the flowers on the lily pads. When the ducklings arrived at a lily pad, the little guys simply hopped upon them like tiny rockets, waddled to the other side, and then hopped back into the water, joyous, and glad to be ducks. The lily pads hardly even moved.

Mom, no longer able to hop upon the lily pads, swam alongside, issuing a quack now and then to keep the little ones from having too much fun.