By seven the path was already a classroom. Each lily-of-the-valley bud hung like a tiny pendant, said good morning to a bead of dew, waited for the ant on the leaf to nod, and only then swayed once, as if that were the whole lesson.
We asked at the kiosk. A man with a paper bag of bread said he had come for rolls and stayed because the smallest bud refused to move until the ant had finished looking. In the park notebook someone wrote: the dew greeted first, which is better manners than shaking all at once.
The keeper pinned a card to the fence: please walk softly until class is over, and kindly do not brush the bells with umbrellas. By evening the same bud came back for a second sway, nodded to the ant twice, and left a quiet white row that lasted until the first cup of tea.