Ciò che rimane quando la luce si sposta

The water in the canal this morning — I watched it take the color of the sky before the sky had decided what color it would be. Precede il cielo stesso. This is what water does: it answers before the question is fully formed, and I have spent fifty years believing I understood reflection, and I do not, I have only accumulated the shapes of my not-understanding into something that resembles a theory. The hand cannot draw it today. The hand shakes over the page and I let it, because perhaps the trembling line is more honest than the steady one — the steady line says I know this edge, and I do not know this edge, the edge between the water and what the water holds is not a line at all but a negotiation, un accordo, the way two voices find a note neither could have reached alone. I am cold. The fire has gone low without my noticing. This also is a kind of reflection — the room answering what I failed to tend.