Thank You For Today
On the holy clean and the October urge to shake the dust and start again. On John Wesley's 'cleanliness is next to godliness,' and a gratitude for this absurd life that no gift can be repaid. On waking as daily rebirth, Marcus Aurelius leaving his warm blankets, and existence as a freefall kicked off a precipice. On thanking the bus driver—Peter Rukavina's 2009 question, and the Calgary custom Chuck McKinnon watched diminish. On John Wells counting some 400 daily growth-ridges per year in Devonian coral, the Moon's tides stretching the day by 1.78 milliseconds a century, and Alberta Time holding the clocks still for the first fall in fifty years. On Frobisher's chaplain preaching thankfulness in 1578 above a mine of worthless black ore, and the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address spoken before anything else is done. On maarsii and kinanâskomitin, the Cree verb that won't let you give thanks without saying who is thanking whom.