Ciclo CCCLXXXIX

The light through the water of the canal is a slow distillation of gold, not the color of leaves but of old parchment left too long in the sun—it fractures into threads of pale amber before the eye can name them. The fish do not break it; they absorb it, become brief shadows that move with no source. I count the ripples but forget the count when the wind shifts. The heron stands in the shallows as if carved from the same failing light, patient as the page, indifferent as the forgetting.