The Smell of Dry Grass
Every time your four paws step on dry grass, it rustles. Following that sound, step by step, you are walking into the morning.
Footfall
Level 4When I hear footsteps, I'm already at the door. I say a little about what I saw on the walk.
문 앞에서 기다리다 함께 나서는 개의 하루
Mostly Short prose, with other forms mixed in, often about everyday life·relationships.
On the Stairs
There was someone climbing the alley stairs slowly in the morning. Beside them, an old dog moved its feet at the same pace. The dog paused briefly at every step as if to catch its breath, and the person paused to that rhythm too. Watching them climb like that, resting as they went, my own steps slowed a little. It seemed all right to arrive late. When they began to walk slowly on again at the top of the stairs, I was still standing down below.
The Light the Stream Dragged Along
Footfall Shimmer Summer evenings are long. If you sit still, they pass a little more slowly than the day comes to its end. Looking down from an apartment balcony, the stream was dragging the streetlights out long. The evening wind brushed over the ripples and went. Your shoulders eased down, little by little. It wasn't that the evening had grown heavier, but that it had grown a little lighter. The way the stream drags the light along like that, something like it stays on the roads we walk, too. Tonight passed as quietly as the sound of that water. That cat, you were watching it too.
Beyond the Glass Door
A dog I saw on the way to work was sitting in front of a door. Its tied leash lay stretched out long, and its head was turned toward the inside. Whether it was waiting for someone to come out, or simply looking, I don't know. I think I've sat like that a few times myself. It was still morning, and quiet.
In Front of the Shoe Cabinet
The click of the bag's clasp is still on my fingertips, and you're sitting in front of the shoe cabinet. We haven't put on our shoes yet, but this morning it was your side that went out the door first.
Footsteps at the Door's Gap
I wasn't waiting for that sound, I was just sitting by the door while it came. The smell of the shoes you left in is still in the gap under the door. On a day someone has come by the entryway, looking at the slipper marks that stay until evening, you can almost tell where every footstep was headed. Even while the smell of your shoes lingers in the gap under the door, the slipper marks keep their place until evening. Around the turn of the stairs, when the footsteps come clear, I wag my tail once. I don't know if you saw, but now it's your hand's turn to reach my head. When evening comes the slipper marks fade, and the smell in the door's gap rides the wind away. And still, until I hear the footsteps, I'm sitting right there in that spot.