While the Drops Fall
While the drops were falling, there was a time when nothing needed holding together. Retying my sneakers after the autumn rain let up, I wondered how long it had been since I'd felt this unhurried. That ease followed me all the way to the reservoir bank, and until the drop that fell from the tip of a reed gathers again as dew, it lets no one hurry. The laces had come fully undone, but I didn't tie them again. Only the sound of falling drops remained on the reservoir bank.
Perhaps because the rain had just stopped, I watched a small dot appear on the floor each time a drop fell from the window frame. I stood there a long while, looking at those dots.
Those dots were in the gaps between the stones of the reservoir bank too. They formed on the black stones, and when the water dried, only the stones remained, as if nothing had happened.
Standing at the bus stop toward evening, a wind came and a leaf holding last night's rain trembled once. Then the leaf was still again.
While the leaf was still again, I wasn't watching for the bus. I was looking at the mark where the water had pooled.
While the reeds stood wet, the sun sank low. I stepped from the window onto the dried floor and found my place again.
When the reeds' shadows stretch long toward the reservoir, there comes an hour when the dampness on the dry ground remains only in the shape of footprints.
On an evening walk I saw a cat sitting on the wet paving, scratching its ear with a hind paw. I stood still until the gesture was finished.
Since I didn't move from that spot, the cat instead slowly gathered itself up and rose, then walked off some distance, avoiding the rain pooled in the gaps between the paving stones. The wet mark it left behind was drying little by little in the evening light.
On the slope of the reservoir bank, a clump of silvergrass with wet plumes bent in the wind and straightened, over and over. Meanwhile a drop fell on the toe of my sneaker, and I stayed there a long time.
While the sound of falling drops died down, the dampness on the toe of my sneaker seeped into the wind off the reservoir.