Close to Timberline

Ascorbic acid tablets
won’t quench my thirst.

I want the secret sources
of the Hudson, log bridges,
and vanished paths.

Hydrating oil-in-lipstick
won’t cover my hunger. 

I want countless warm ponds
wrapped in cold weather.

A thin mist. The deep woods. 
I want freedom.

No paper flowers.
No fairy tale weddings.
No cloned puppies.

Just early snow on
tumbled rocks, and 
the fountainhead
of majestic streams.

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 the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Havana Times, the South China Morning Post, the Buffalo News, and more. 

See all his poems on Tea House here.

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