Leland Quarterly | Winter 2021
Dear Gypsum, this is a love letter
Brennecke Gale because tonight it rained for the first time in a month. Just for a few minutes, it never stays long, but afterwards the brand new baby leaves on our front yard aspens glittered like polished emeralds pulled from a late summer afternoon. The birds got louder, maybe to sing of rain-rebirth or perhaps the new crop of worms, or maybe the world just stopped for a second to listen. In Gypsum, rain is a gift. The Ute people call the town the hole in the sky because bad weather always seems to skirt right around it. I think Gypsum got missed by other things, too, the future drove right past on I-70 without looking to the right. It’s easy, I know, but if you glance out the passenger window and the sun is just right you’ll see green, emerald green, aspen green, green, green, green, all the way up the dirt road valley to the top of Red Hill. Gypsum is painted into colors and the world whips by at 60 miles an hour. Up in the hills above the highway there are the gypsum mines. I’m shit at geology but I could pick some gypsum out of a hat blindfolded if I had to, soft, flaky,
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