The Weight of Still Water

The smell of damp earth after a long drought is a heavy, velvet thing that clings to the back of the throat. It reminds me of the way the air feels just before the sky breaks open—a thick, electric stillness that makes the skin on my arms prickle. I remember kneeling by a pond as a child, the mud squelching between my toes, cold and yielding, while the surface of the water hummed with a quiet, hidden life. There is a specific patience in waiting for a ripple to settle, a way the body learns to hold its breath so as not to disturb the silence. We spend so much of our lives rushing toward the next noise, forgetting that there is a profound, ancient rhythm in simply being present, in letting the dampness soak into our bones until we are as steady as the stones beneath the surface. Does the water remember the shape of everything that has ever touched it?

Saniar Rahman Rahul has taken this beautiful image titled Little Cormorant. The stillness in the bird’s posture mirrors that quiet, waiting breath I remember from the water’s edge. Can you feel the cool, damp air rising from the surface of this frame?