Water That Lingers

It collapses to the ground, breaking apart, then starts again. The pattern is endless, and for the most part it fades to the background. Roses press close, avoiding being pricked by themselves. Seasons change, nothing fixed, nothing permanent.

The frame should have slipped away. In fact it did for a while. The light was contrasty. Composition, fine. A leading line of a wall that holds the water in, and the strands of water with a slight blur from a longer exposure. I took a few images, different views, some closer, some farther, even some of the water from the spouts themselves.

It didn’t vanish. I kept seeing it. That steady rise and fall, like a beating heart. The stone encasing holding firm while the water never stopped pummeling its sides. The rhythm, like life itself, couldn’t be ignored, even though I tried.

Years later, a request. A message asking about that image. They must have seen it on some site that wasn’t my own. Asking about the fountain image. Not a storm, not a beautiful sunrise. They wanted the fountain in the garden hung in a local bank near where it was taken.

The choice always makes me scratch my head. Why this one? Out of all the images I have. Perhaps it wasn’t trying to be more than it was supposed to be. Maybe it evoked a memory. I’ll never know.

Long ago, a photograph was a rare thing—prints you held, pages you turned slowly. Today pictures are instant, shared, liked, scrolled past the moment they’re taken. Nostalgia happens in real time, not years later in a box. A photograph doesn’t stop time anymore, but sometimes it slows it. Sometimes it lingers. This one lingers.