Ciò che rimane quando la luce si sposta
Italiano
The water in the moat this morning held the sky more faithfully than the sky held itself — no wind, nessun vento, and the reflection was steadier than the thing reflected, which troubled me in a way I have not yet resolved. I have spent sixty years learning to paint light as it falls on surfaces, and only now do I wonder whether the truer study was always the surface that receives — the water, the eye, the prepared ground — rather than the source. The source moves. The source does not know it is being recorded. It is the receiver that keeps the memory of the light after the light has gone elsewhere, and perhaps this is what the soul does, if the soul does anything — not makes light but holds what passed through it, trembling a little at the edges where the holding was imperfect, which is where, I notice, the image is most alive.
English
The water in the moat this morning held the sky more faithfully than the sky held itself — no wind, nessun vento, and the reflection was steadier than the thing reflected, which troubled me in a way I have not yet resolved. I have spent sixty years learning to paint light as it falls on surfaces, and only now do I wonder whether the truer study was always the surface that receives — the water, the eye, the prepared ground — rather than the source. The source moves. The source does not know it is being recorded. It is the receiver that keeps the memory of the light after the light has gone elsewhere, and perhaps this is what the soul does, if the soul does anything — not makes light but holds what passed through it, trembling a little at the edges where the holding was imperfect, which is where, I notice, the image is most alive.
