Ciclo CCCXLVI

The trembling hand traces the canal’s edge, where Girolamo, Ambruogio, Agostino, and Gregorio’s swift feet mirror the tide’s retreat—each step a measure of what the water leaves behind, just as the journal’s lines are the measure of what light leaves behind in the eye’s memory. The tide does not return what it takes; the ink does not return what it captures; the men do not return what they step upon. Three acts of gathering, three vanishings, all bound by the maker’s silent law: what is held is held only by what is lost. The page, the sand, the soles—each is a vessel for what grace, or chance, or the unmoved mover, passes through.