Move slow and grieve what's broken

What matter if I live on—

a tortoise lives

a hundred times as long.

—Issa, in Japanese Death Poems, edited by Yoël Hoffmann

A box turtle visited my garden on the day of the July full moon and lunar eclipse. At first, his pace was rapid (for a turtle), but then he came to a standstill as I drew near. I thought about our breakneck culture, the mugs and mottos urging us to “hustle every day” and “move fast and break things.” Better to move slow and grieve what’s broken, or at least pause and acknowledge what we’ve done with this world.