Before Words

By the time it is written down it has
already passed. Even the animals,
the brute beasts of the fields, dumb
and blind to the ways of poetry in books, 

feel it in the soul of their hooves
and the simple sensations of their tongues
touching the grass, or a pig rolling in the mud, 
as birds sing for no reason but to hear themselves
make a music that poets hope to imitate.

George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat ReviewMoria Poetry JournalChronogram JournalAmpersand Literary ReviewThe Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA TodayThe Wall Street JournalThe AtlanticHavana TimesSouth China Morning PostThe Buffalo News, and more. 

See all his poems on Tea House here.


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