The creek has been arguing with the south bank since the rains started.
I noticed it first as a change in sound. Something fuller, more insistent, moving past the wall at an hour when it’s usually quiet enough to hear the stone settle instead.
By the second week I saw why. The water was cutting a new line where the bank had softened, pulling wider with every rain the ridge sent down.
It was not asking permission.
✧
I spent an evening just watching it. The old channel still ran where it always had, but thinner now, less certain of itself. The new bend was taking most of what came down from the highest ground.
I did not try to force it back.
There was a clearing past the tree line that had never held water well. Dry by midsummer most years, whatever I’d tried to grow there giving up by July.
With shovel in hand I opened a narrow channel toward it instead.
Not much. Enough.
✧
It took less effort than I expected, and longer than I expected, both at once. A few stones moved. Some ground cleared that hadn’t needed clearing before. The water did the rest on its own schedule, not mine.
By the following week, the clearing was damp enough to hold something.
I have not decided yet what to plant there.
✧
The creek still runs past the south wall, in the bend it chose for itself. I did not build that path. I only noticed where the pressure was already going, and gave it somewhere useful to arrive.
Some evenings I go down just to hear it.
✧
This letter is now part of the Conservatory — those who find one often need another.