# holding spell {.hidden} 

we share a rich vocabulary; us.  \
we can speak of  \
broad skies and magnitudes,  \
the sound of a blown voice,  \
through a horn softly \
on a hill far away, \
of magnetite swathes  \
and sparks so sharp, \
they can be felt by grazing a little finger. \
we can speak of things that  \
when we don’t feel strong, we think about \
and of things that  \
when we want to feel strong, we think about. \

little animals, small and quiet and shivering  \
caressed but  \
suspended \
by the tips of whiskers only air. \
when we speak, noses twitching \
it can be of \
separateness, discreteness \
the spaces between circles \
overlapped, but still holding \
we can multiply interpretations,  \
and brace against their weight \
or  \
we can scoop up abundance \
and bathe lightly. \

throats, quivering, sound like cold or terror \
but they too ask, whether the circles  \
are organisms micro-vibrating \
with the energy it takes  \
to realise squelchy new forms \
to absorb: experience grows the self grows autonomy \
by care and love into the blood. \

our expanding throats  \
stickily coated with the outside,  \
wonder \
whether us-as-earth, will shift magnetic poles again  \
as we did recently  \
780,000 years ago \
well, not within my living memory but \
maybe within ours. \

it’s comforting that a polar shift might mean no more \
to glottises \
than huffing in the wet brown mulch from the forest floor; \
yelling in bluebells until we laugh \
is anyway more accessible and soothing. \

to you, the piece of my bruised heart: \
that bright lodged glint  \
is your intelligence \
equal to all winds it bends against \
think of it like a tinder mushroom - \
cupped, it can keep you warm \
and light many fires along the way \

when we loudly open ourselves without \
insides \
the world rushes in  \
unbidden even \
but making calm salve  \
by making ourselves space \
avoids projection.  \
when we speak, let’s not speak  \
about identity \
no -isms or -nesses, \
just about sheltering  \
the trembling creatures, we are \
just about protecting  \
the vulnerability in our voices. \

that belief, in self-knowledge \
might even allow  \
ample vibrant exchange, iron fizzing, \
something like a conversation between \
million year old magnetic traces found inside a tenth of a millimetre of rock \
and a magnetometer \
in the key of hysteresis \

this vocabulary we share,  \
made of hard and soft sounds \
of silences  \
and recurrences \
(i won’t lie)  \
has lashed at times, \
and whipped us round \
but it has also gifted us  \
cycles of growth  \
and non-linear narratives \
comfortably spiky creations \
and exuberant wide worlds; \
so now \
when we speak, intertwined,  \
i’m grateful for all those words \
that bind and support us \
leaning back away from another,  \
onto each other,  \
overlapped but holding, still.

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