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Hoophollowed like a seashell swept onto the shore.

Hollow like a story Waiting to unfold

Harland by Lucy Catherine

Your ears

Will you love me

When I'm gone.

The first language was the one the goddess taught us when she made the world

to carry all the ancient wisdom, the language of creation.

She gave it to every mountain, every hill, every rock, every bend in every river.

The rocks told the soil and the soil told the trees.

The animals and birds learnt from them and from one another.

In this way, the people came to understand too.

Then they could speak with the trees of the forest,

the birds of the air, the fish in the lake.

Chasing down a hare is not an activity I would recommend.

The hare is an extremely fast and agile creature.

There came upon the world a great flood.

What had once been connected was thrust apart by the inrushing waters. The people suddenly found they were separated from one another by inhospitable seas.

In time, they began to forget the first language. Each group developed their own unique way of speaking,

living their lives as they did,

isolated on the lonely hilltops of the newly formed islands. My contrast, I am slow, clumsy and slightly overweight. The grounds that surround the manor house seem endless. Everywhere, the people spoke less and less to the forests or the mountains,

...