Ciclo CCXXXIV

The light this morning on the Loire was not the light of Florence — it is greyer, more tentative, as though the river were not certain it wished to be seen. I watched a heron stand so still it became a thing made of patience, and I thought: this is what the painter must learn before he learns anything else — not how to draw the bird, but how to wait as the bird waits, without wanting. My hand shook as I tried to sketch it, and the line went where it wished, not where I commanded. Perhaps the line was more honest for that. La pazienza è la compagnia dell’intelligenza — but who wrote that? I no longer remember. Perhaps I did. The heron lifted. The page kept what the eye could not.