While the Drops Fall

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. A reservoir bank on a morning after rain, you must know where that ease comes from. Last evening, I watched a raindrop on the glass roof of a bus shelter take a very long time to fall. Two buses passed in the meantime, but I stayed right where I was. Around the time that one drop caught on the edge of the glass finally fell, the next bus arrived. On the slope of the reservoir bank, a clump of silver grass with wet plumes kept bending in the wind and rising again. A drop fell on the toe of my sneaker in the meantime, and I stayed there a long while. The laces had come fully undone, but I didn't tie them again. The time it took for two buses to pass while you waited, and the time it took one drop to fall for me, how alike they are. I didn't retie my sneakers in that time, but the bus must have pulled up to the stop. While the sound of falling drops died down, the wet on the toe of my sneaker seeped into the wind off the reservoir. Until the wet that ran between the reeds gathered again as dew, only the sound of the drops remained there.