Winged angel tattoo across the chest

The snow shut the Col of Sant Anna on Tuesday, so I have spent three nights in the hut with nothing but the stove and Old Pietro's cough for company. You asked whether the wayside angel is still standing above the switchbacks. She is. The wind has taken more of her left wing since summer, but her robe still falls in the same deep folds, and when the cloud lifts she looks down the valley as though she has been waiting for someone to come up it.

A courier came over from the Ferrer side yesterday with a satchel of letters for the mill. He sheltered behind her plinth and told me he had crossed the pass four times and never once looked at her face. I said she had no face to speak of after a century of weather. He laughed and said that was not what he meant. The feathers, he said, looked like a pair of hands held open, and a man carrying bad news ought to be able to rest his load under something like that.

I have been thinking about that all week. Your mother's letter is still in the tin box under my bunk, the one she wrote before the flood, and I have not opened it since you took the lower road. I will open it tonight while the stove holds. If the snow clears by Thursday I will walk up with the salt for the goats and read it to the angel, since she has kept quieter company than I have.

Come up in spring if you can. Bring the good waxed thread for the saddle, and tell Marta the boy with the spotted dog has left his bootlaces with me again.

Your brother, Anselm