Morning at the square brook now begins with a harbor no wider than a mitten. Paper boats wait along the moss in a polite queue, bows pointed downstream, while a pebble in the shallows inspects each crease as if it were a boarding pass.
We asked at the kiosk. The woman selling stamps said a folded steamer from yesterday’s weather page had been asked, quite kindly, to wait its turn. The park keeper pinned a card to the little bridge: boarding is by nod, please do not puff, the breeze already holds a ticket.
By tea the boats had shown their slips, nodded to the railing, and pushed off one palm-length. A sparrow walked the plank as if seeing them off. Next morning the same pebble was still on duty, slightly wetter, and the first boat of the day waited with a crease as neat as a bow.