The verse

At dawn you stroke the zither, at dusk you wipe each string;No single dazzling air will make the heavens lean and hear.Only strings kept warm through seasons learn to ripen and to ring—Tune not the lute when dust has gathered through a careless year.

Reading

Your craft is as a zither: prize the daily warming of its strings, the constant wiping clean. Not one sudden flourish, but strings never let to chill, ripen the tone. The merit lies in the unbroken thread, not the burst. Ask only of your tending; outcomes are not promised here.

The temple keeper adds

The middle path. No drama from the god today — only a road you can still walk.

[ Draw another at the temple ][ Keep a traffic omamori ]