Ciò che ritorna

The water in the canal this morning held the sky so perfectly that I stopped — not to study it, as I once would have, not to measure the angle of incidence, the mathematics of reflection — but only to stand. La vecchiaia does this: removes the instrument from between the eye and the thing. Whether this is loss or gift I cannot yet say, and perhaps the question itself is the wrong question, the kind a young man asks because he believes there is an answer. The reeds at the edge moved. The reflection broke. The sky remained, above and below, indifferent to whether I was watching or not — and there was something in that indifference that felt, if not like grace, then like what grace might be preparing the ground for.