7 Rivers, Rain, Droplets
Skyler Johnson
Inspired by “Witness to the Rain” in Braiding Sweetgrass
Summary: In this story, a girl is watching the rain and how it falls. She decides to go out and discover. After exploring she comes back to her mother with questions. She wants to know why droplets are different sizes. She learns about blockades and moisture.
Keywords:
- Moisture: a small amount of liquid that makes something slightly wet.
- Blockades: the closing off of a place to prevent the coming in or going out of people or supplies.
- Droplets: a very small drop of a liquid.
It’s a rainy day. My house looks over a river and is next to a forest. I am looking out the window of my house. I wonder why some places collect large amounts of water and some places only collect small amounts. I pull on my yellow polka dot boots. I walk through the damp grass. I slip and lay there a bit. The grass has little droplets. The droplets fit perfectly on the strands, almost like they were meant to be.
I wander out to the river. I look at the water. The drops that hit the body of water are large. How can this be? How can the drops on the grass be so tiny and delicate but these large and bold?
As I walk back to the house I stop at the forest. Can this be right? Can rain come in different sizes? Why does this happen? I step over the first barrier that’s dry. The forest is dry. How can this be. I run back to the house. I open the door and kick my boots off.
My mom is in the kitchen. She has her apron on and is sitting on a bar stool. “In a hurry, little one?” she says. “Mama the rain, some are small like the droplets on the grass, some large like the rain hitting the river, and some areas there are none like in the forest. I don’t understand.” Mama grabs me a stool. “The droplets on the grass can only hold so much moisture from the air. The droplets that are hitting the river hold so much moisture that it makes the size much larger. The droplets on the trees are the umbrella for the forest, the rain does not reach the ground because it is blocked by the trees.” Different sizes and blockades, if you say so.
