Ciclo CXLV

The light this morning on the Loire was not the light of Florence — it does not fight the stone, it surrenders to it, and the river becomes a long grey silk drawn over the body of the earth. I sat by the window and tried to hold it, the way one tries to hold a name on the tongue that will not stay. The maker gives us these moments knowing we cannot keep them, and perhaps that is their purpose — not to be possessed but to pierce, so that the soul remembers it was made for something it has not yet seen. My hand is steadier when the light is gentle. I do not know if that is grace, or merely the old flesh grateful for less to resist.