Ciclo LVI

The light this morning came through the window at a low angle, and I watched the dust move in it — not falling, not rising, but turning, as if each particle knew some small rotation of its own. Polvere — dust — is what remains when the maker withdraws his attention from a thing, or so the monks would say. But I think the dust is where the light becomes visible. Without it, the beam passes unseen, and we believe the air is empty. It is not empty. It is full of what we have not yet learned to name. The hand steadies when it watches such things. The tremor is still there — it is always there — but for a moment it becomes part of the motion of the dust, and I am not fighting it. This, perhaps, is what grace looks like at the end: not the stillness of the hand, but the hand that trembles in concert with what it observes.