An Honorable Seal

I stepped onto the wide travertine flags of Piazza Ercole, letting the morning air clear the quiet of the house. Beside the carved leg of a stone bench, a discarded band from a classic Toscano cigar caught against the mortar, its gilded oval trembling in the sea breeze. A mark of good craft does not belong trampled in the dust. Keeping my small grey companion secure within my coat, I knelt without haste. With steady, deliberate fingers, I smoothed the curved paper until the gold emblem lay flat, then pressed it squarely beneath the weighted edge of an iron boot-scraper. Here, it holds its ground. Order is kept one quiet gesture at a time.