Fri, 9 January

LITURGY FOR A FRIDAY IN GEAR Let us attend to the turning. For the small wheel that wakes before the body does, for the calendar that knows us better than we know ourselves, we give thanks. For the handing-off — one hour's purpose meshing with the next — teeth finding teeth in the dark of routine, we give thanks. For the soap that dissolves the day. For the plate returned to blankness. For the child whose arm learns what the mind has always known. Let us attend to the enormous wheel behind the wheels. It moves so slowly we forget it moves. It is called summer. It is called the thing we structured everything around and then stopped seeing. For the garden that does not care what you founded or what you missed — that asks only for your knees in the dirt and your hands around a root — Let us give thanks. The gears do not love us. But we oil them so tenderly you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Go now. The weekend is casting its shadow. You have earned the stopping. You have earned the slow wheel.