second hand

She stretches out her hand, not the right one--the primary one--but her 'second' hand that isn't as strong or coordinated, the one that usually takes second seat, plays second fiddle, to the other, always being 'left' behind. Yet it holds a moment of love upon its finger that leads to infinity and straight to the heart, and it provides for balance like the scales of all the experiences. It holds the pot steady while the other stirs and blends and creates. It steadies the page for the other to write. The second hand allows the other to be free and flowing. 
Almost forgotten, the second hand is a subtle tick of each measure. While we look to the hour or the minute, the tiny second hand keeps on moving through space as its petals unfurl so gradual that we only know the flower and not the opening of each moment. 
The second hand store across the street and down three blocks is always busy never forgotten except by those who only want to see the new, the fresh, the primary objects before they have connected and grown character and exuded an ambience from serving and being treasured.
A second hand house that knew love, that has grown children and felt loss, beauty and anger, resolution of conflict and acceptance of life. A house became a home and is reaching out now for acceptance as a new home. A space where harmonics of bird and bee sing the shadows into gentle blankets for sleep and renewal. A space where light streams grace and creativity up into the highest corners of the ceiling and spreads among the arches, gliding along their curves with the laughter of a child on a yellow slide.
I take my second hand clothes to be worn as new by someone else, and I slip into the frayed pants that were once new yet have become old and comfortable and now attained the status of second hand yet will remain with me until they fall into rags and then my second hand will hold the cleaning water bucket while the other brings a shine to the well-worn gently-used stove that cooks the pot of food that nourishes body and hands and soul into this moment of creating home again and again.
"Tic-toc-tic-toc" the second hand moves in near-silence without interrupting as I feel time changing, as the sun appears to move, as the birds become more scarce, as we advance into the heat of the day. Does that mean morning becomes second place and takes a back seat to the advance of noon? Or does morning transform into a new moment because the past is no more? Surely we can touch the past morning's light of creation in the new day? No, of course not--silly. Morning is gone but we can touch the moment's it created, each one upon the other, because morning is not second hand in its presence--within all nature, all are primary. 
Nothing, no life form, no experience, is second hand because all play their part in the whole and realize the primacy of each others' moment as One existence.
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* "second hand" was a writing prompt emailed via Peggy Tabor Millin, ClarityWorks