I notice.
Everything.
How the ink
on my paper
has more than
one color of black
and feels delicate as silk.
The hard plastic wheels of
a stroller scraping the gravel.
Like crackling embers,
the stillness of a solitary pine
needle sighing in the breeze.
An eternal thing, like blood
flowing for its own sake.
That spring task
of bringing life again.
Or the neighbor’s Calico lifting
each paw as a ninja and the sparrows
asking permission to sing their song
like a controlled accidentinside the marvelous gray void.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana Times, South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more.
See all his poems on Tea House here.
