By seven the creek has already set two thimbles of mesh on a flat stone, as if tea were about to be poured through the water itself. The platypuses stand in the shallows with the sieves tucked under their bills. A pebble is greeted first. Only after that, and only after a nod to the sedge, does a good morning get strained until it is light enough to sip.
We asked at the footbridge. "They will not let you take two," said the woman who walks her terrier before the bakery opens. "I held out my cup because I thought extra manners might keep until lunch. The second greeting sat in the mesh, considered the pebble, and slipped back into the bill. The sedge looked proud of everyone."
Yesterday a neighbor came back at dusk with the same cup still damp. They sieved it again, found last morning still inside, and sent him home with a thank-you instead of another. The park keeper left a card by the reeds: if the pebble has not been greeted, please wait. The queue of cups, by then, already knew how.