Diamonds in the sky with foothills

The artist came back late with her sister and started working again. I could hear her sighing and squeaking and tweaking after midnight as I tried to sleep: I was smiling, though. Next day, we began the sensation of travelling through a green and pleasant land on a train. A newspaper image in front of the artist of Henry Moore's sculpture 'Large Two Forms' and the artist questioning its veracity. Me, glibly saying it's early evidence of abstract exploration, really looking at the sky. The real sky. Not the sky in the colour newspaper photograph. And thinking of the curious reappearance of Russian TU-95 bombers in another newspaper photograph. Photos. Photos. They pass me by in the end. Then, a few hours later, in 6.1 Surround, a symphony of gushing water. (We've arrived in the foothills.) A butterfly, brown, sits like science in my hands. A boy - my son's cousin - pretends devotedly to make tea. A dog soaks up the years. People, close, unite. The Artist's Parents. The Artist's Children. The Artist's Sister-in-Law. I run my eyes from the sky to the horizon, soaking up the peace. Behind the ridge: a slow moving, wispy white cloud, like a white blood cell against blue sky. I look at the artist, feel good. My only struggle is with the pulp fiction in my hands about shadowy figures catching wind of murder in the skies. A good day with the artist.