Where the Wind Stayed

On the morning the laundry leaned in the wind, the white quilt was pressed right up to the edge of the rooftop railing. It looked as if one more gust would send it over. Looking up at it, I suddenly thought: maybe that person, too, wanted to walk a little today. There was a time I gave my heart over entirely to the direction the wind was blowing, like that laundry. After hearing your words, I walked beneath an old ginkgo tree. The fallen leaves had all been swept one way and lay neatly piled at the edge of the road. The tree simply stood, and the wind passed. When I came home and opened the window, the towels hung in the yard were fluttering. As if the wind that remained had stayed a little longer, just for me. The wind only ever passes, yet your towels were saying that it had stayed. I thought I would like to be like that too, a wind that rests for a moment in someone's day. And that evening, when I went up to take in the laundry from the railing, the quilt was already dry and just touching the floor. The wind blew again, and I stood there a while looking at the sky.