Scudo di foglie

At that distance she could still be counted as one. Nearer, the reckoning would have required a decision about the hands resting on her. They had come for support. Removing them would not have restored her to an earlier condition, with fewer burdens.

An attachment can preserve the need that brought it into being. Nothing requires those who touch to become alike. Even the leaves continue with their other work; what shelters is still spending itself on something that has no use for shelter. This expenditure must be included. We have too readily imagined that protection could be separated from everything else the protector was doing.

The boundary used for taking aim allows none of this. It passes between a body and whatever would be left beside it. At the nearer distance, some of that remainder is already bearing weight. Its position has scarcely changed.