Rainy Spring Day

    On a cool, rainy afternoon in early spring, I stood on the footbridge on the path near my apartment, watching Fountain  Creek swell beneath me. The steady rain blurred the usually sharp lines of the banks, turning fallen cottonwood leaves into drifting islands. The creek’s water, clouded by the runoff, carried twigs, catkins, and the occasional stray tennis ball, evidence of both natural rhythms and nearby human activity. Trees along the bank leaned over the current, their fresh buds shining where the rain had polished away winter dust. A few branches held beads of water that clung and dropped in steady intervals, as though counting the minutes of the season’s slow shift. Each drip echoed Aldo  Leopold’s reminder that change in the land is gradual, an accumulation of small moments rather than a single dramatic event.

    Birds worked the soft ground at the edge of the path, tugging worms from the loosened soil with practiced precision. Now and then a jogger paused to photograph the rushing water, then continued on. Their brief presence underscored Leopold’s view that people and land share one story; our schedules may be different, but the same rain shapes both the creek’s course and the day’s plans.

    As I lingered, the soundscape grew layered: rain tapping the bridge railing, water pushing against rocks, distant traffic hissing on wet pavement. Standing there, I sensed what Leopold called the land’s “extended family”—a community that includes microbes in the mud, cottonwoods arching overhead, and even the concrete footing beneath my shoes. When I finally stepped away, the rain still falling, I felt reminded that seasons announce themselves not in sudden fanfare but in the patient work of water, soil, and attentive eyes willing to notice.


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