She wrote to me about the fires and described how the sky was a smoky red haze and the air smelt of burning wood, how the smell reminded her of being in a spa.

‘And the falls of ash came down. Tasting the ash on my tongue’ she said, ‘That was gold and pink, like honey in the morning.’

She wanted to hear more about him. She wanted to know what he smelt like. She said she felt done with the city. 

She talked about the ash clouds and yet I couldn’t see the sky anymore. The cloud here is like a blanket. The darkness is thicker than the smoke.

‘I wasn’t sure if this is what you had in mind.’

 And there’s the image of the mountains draped in cloud with the birds which reveal themselves to be flex of greasy dust upon the glass.
I liked it better before I think, when you described it to me and wish I could see it again that way, thousands of birds flocking across the view finder, interrupting the slow movement of mist and forest and rock.