Twin profile silhouettes on the calves

The pass closed on Tuesday, so the post has been coming up by mule, and the mule is slow and sulks on the bends. Father says the grey ball you sent a picture of is nothing but a mill cistern on stilts, and I told him to hush, because it is the only thing in the valley I have ever wanted to draw.

Here is the news. The tinsmith's boy has finally finished the weathercock for the chapel roof, and it faces south, towards you, which Mother says is a sign and I say is just the wind. Old Anselm fell asleep in the bell tower again and rang noon at dusk, so half the village ate supper in the dark. Most evenings I walk up to the first pines with the sketchbook and try to get the needles right. They never come out right. Every line I draw turns into the shadow of a line.

You asked whether I still look at the city postcards. I do. I keep the one of the domed church pinned above the stove, next to the map of the pass with the crossing marked in red pencil. I think about how the dome sits on its hill like a bowl somebody set down and forgot, and how you wrote that on your first Sunday the bells were so loud the pigeons left the square.

Come home when the snow melts, or do not, but send another drawing. I will hang it beside the others. Tell me which of us the city is looking at and which the forest, because I have been turning the paper round all week and cannot tell.

Your loving sister, Mira