Raindrop's Travels

Poem: The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry

Our Water: Raindrop's Travels

by Lois B. Robbins

Hello. My name is Raindrop. I thought I’d drop in to tell you where I’ve been since I first came here with my friends in that thunderstorm.

First, we hit your roof hard. Years ago, when there weren’t as many roofs and blacktop driveways, we could just sink in where we landed and stay there. Instead, we left your roof in a hurry, all of us at once, and hit the lawn running. All we ever wanted to do was rest and sink into the ground, but we had to keep going.

As we left your lawn, we took a lot of stuff with us. Remember the Weed and Feed you so conscientiously applied just before the storm? Well, the combination of fertilizer and weed-killer was there when we came rushing along. We absorbed some of it, (against our will, I might add). The rest got pushed along in front of us as we rolled on, looking for a lower spot to rest and sink in.

We were glad to find your mowed ditch, out by the road. But because no plants there had been allowed to grow deeper roots that could have helped to keep us there, we just had to keep going. There we encountered some new things we had to gather up and push along – things that had been washed from the road in gentler rainfalls: calcium chloride, oil and transmission fluid from leaky vehicles. Still, we couldn’t rest, but had to keep going, seeking a lower place where we could finally rest and sink in.

We traveled quite a distance this way, and almost every lawn we went past offered up more weed killer and fertilizer for us to absorb and push along.

So by the time we got to the lowest point in this area, which happened to be the trout stream, we had pushed and absorbed a lot of bad stuff that entered the stream with us. I heard that a lot of us, in another area, had ended up in the lake, where lakefront owners have a problem with excess weed-growth.

Now, there’s something I need to tell you. It really upsets me when I hear that stormwater runoff (that’s us) is the biggest non-point source pollutant there is. When we first came here, we were pure enough for you to wash you hair in, and even drink. We aren’t the ones who insisted on perfect lawns. We aren’t the ones with leaky cars. Don’t blame us. It’s not our fault that fish are dying and your boat motor gets tangled in weeds. We are simply obeying the one and only law we must obey: the law of gravity.

Well. I’m sorry this turned into a polemic. It’s just that it really ticks me off when I hear people say that rainwater is a pollutant. Is that unfair or what?

Next: Raindrop and Splash Go Their Separate Ways