Behind the veil, the hills. Sky sun-hot and piercing blue, or was it breezy cool, grey? Air’s fresh salt smell! Maybe the ice-cream slipped from my hand and nestled in hot dry sand. Or splashed on ribbed concrete, dribbled, sank/pooled, strangely glistened shrinking away. Exploring Cornish rock pools, me and my dad were friends that day.

Two or three Lammergeier wheel silently over mountains, spying far beyond Lefki Ora’s dry hills the sea. Mt Coot-tha’s rock art figure floats under Loch Affric’s scotch pine in the mirroring stillness of a promontory. Myself (by now a masked Neanderthal wind-up air fish) quizzically orbits a floral daemon. Other forms nearby ask (the ontologist) what is a sign?