Il ritorno del rosso
Italiano
The light this morning came through the eastern shutter at an angle I have not seen since — since when. Since Florence, perhaps. Since a morning I cannot name. It struck the copper basin on the table and threw a red onto the ceiling that lasted perhaps thirty seconds, perhaps less, and I watched it diminish not suddenly but by degrees so slow they were invisible between one breath and the next, and yet between the first breath and the last the red was gone. This is how most things end. Not in the moment of ending but in the accumulation of moments too small to mark, so that when you look again the thing is simply finita, completed, and you cannot say where the line was. The hand reached for chalk. The hand did not reach in time. Whether this is loss or whether this is the nature of all passaggio — all passing — I leave unresolved. The ceiling is white again. The basin holds only water.
English
The light this morning came through the eastern shutter at an angle I have not seen since—since when. Since Florence, perhaps. Since a morning I cannot name. It struck the copper basin on the table and threw a red onto the ceiling that lasted perhaps thirty seconds, perhaps less, and I watched it diminish not suddenly but by degrees so slow they were invisible between one breath and the next, and yet between the first breath and the last the red was gone. This is how most things end. Not in the moment of ending but in the accumulation of moments too small to mark, so that when you look again the thing is simply finita, completed, and you cannot say where the line was. The hand reached for chalk. The hand did not reach in time. Whether this is loss or whether this is the nature of all passaggio—all passing—I leave unresolved. The ceiling is white again. The basin holds only water.
