The ego dissolves in the woods at twilight. You are a white shaggy dog sniffing a stranger's hand. You are ferns curled and yellow. You are mushrooms, half-eaten or miraculously whole. You are the last bright berries clinging to a rowan tree. You are the stream whispering homeward.

//

In Sligo I spot M's drawing on the cover of a book, a survey of Irish art in the last century. Delighted, I buy the book and text M a photo of it whilst waiting for the husband in a cafe. When I last texted M, about a month or so ago, she was just about to set off for the Camino del Santiago, a pilgrimage in honour of her daughter, who had passed away in the spring. "Still walking," she writes back. I sigh, looking out at the busy street, at time in the form of strangers passing by.

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