Ciclo XXXV

The light this morning came through the window at such an angle that the dust became visible — each particle carrying its own small history of descent, and I thought: così l’anima, so the soul, descending through the air, visible only when the light strikes it from the side, never when one looks straight on. The hand is worse today. The fingers refuse the pen at first, then yield, then refuse again, as though they have their own will, their own fatigue, their own small rebellion against the mind that commands them. I have been studying the way water moves over stone — not the large motion, the river’s course, but the small: the film that clings, the hesitation before the drop falls, the way it chooses its path not by decision but by the shape of what is already there. La forma decide. The form decides. And we believe we choose. The candle burned down while I watched the dust, and now the room is darker than before, and I must light another, and another, and so the days pass — each one a small flame that thinks it is the sun.