In the early hours, before the dark has lifted, a drop of water hangs from every blade of grass. The tips bend slightly under the weight, and only the few strands the focus falls on stand out in sharp green. Further back, both the grass and the drops blur and fade, but the points holding the light still float white in the darkness.
This is the scene just after the rain has stopped. The drops do not stay long on the leaves. Once they grow a little heavier they fall, or run down the blade and seep into the soil near the roots. The darkest part of the photograph, that unseen place beneath the grass, is in fact where this water is headed.
When soil is alive, rainwater seeps in slowly and stays. Where the soil is covered and packed down, the same rain simply runs off. This is why water overflows when it rains in the city, and why the ground dries out after only a few days. Holding on to water comes down to keeping the soil alive.
A hand's width of flower bed, the base of a tree in an alley, a small box garden on a rooftop. Scenes like this are made every day wherever soil is left exposed. The choice to strip away concrete and leave soil open may be small, but it changes the path of the water.
What lies underfoot was caught in the frame too. The ground showing here and there between the grass has taken the rain without turning to mud, and it is loosely covered with small debris and decayed leaves that give it a rough texture. It is a floor where a falling drop would not splash, that is, a surface ready to take in rainwater. This dim black background will likely stay wet longer than the glint at the leaf tips.
Looking at the photograph again, the drop is still at the tip of the leaf. It is water whose story begins only after it falls. What we lay beneath it is ours to decide.
