Ciclo LXXXIV

The light on the canal this morning was not the light of Florence — it is thinner, more hesitant, as if the air itself is uncertain whether to let the sun through. I watched a heron stand so still at the water’s edge that I could not tell where the bird ended and its reflection began, and I thought: this is what old age does to a man — he becomes indistinguishable from the stillness around him. The hand trembles more now, yes, but the eye still catches what it catches. A leaf turned on the water, and for a moment I saw the spiral again — that form that is everywhere, in shells, in water, in the way hair grows from the scalp — and I reached for the page because the thought would not wait. La mano trema, ma l’occhio non mente. The French servants speak of rain coming. Perhaps. The sky says nothing yet.