I’ll never forget the smile of my grandmother (po po/婆婆). Her soft, inviting grin greeted me every time I visited her with my parents and sister. Po Po always seemed excited to see us, but she expressed her excitement with a modesty that few people could perceive or appreciate outside of the family. Her excitement […]
memory
Watch, listen, and remember. He is all around us
No one can predict the time of one’s passing. More accurately, no one can predict when one dissolves into the bloom of a flower, or returns to the sky as a cloud that is beyond creation and destruction. It was therefore natural that the Hong Kong Buddhist community’s commemoration for Thich Nhat Hanh on the […]
Collectibles
at least he rememberedthe salt-sprayed breezeon their patio in Red Bankthe patio with the pistachio greenumbrella, talking about the sailboatsand sipping raspberry-peach iced teawondering out loud… how a sunsetcould look so much like candle waxmelting on the floor of an old attica few drops of citrus oil was all it took George Cassidy Payne is […]
Where the River Bends
Our memories were Once possibilities ofGod’s timeless perfectionOur lives predicted by Laws of grace, our dreamsForgotten by the freedomOf moments lost and foundAn everlasting river of momentsRushing to fall apart again andAgain, more than a mother or fatherGod is a friend, the one who holds us George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work […]
No destination
old photographperson sitting on grasscigarette in hand person, grass, cigarette, smokeall gone to same Support Our Dharma Work
How Archimedes Proved Ideas
If all the pencils and pensin the world disappearedI would write your namein the ashes on the hearth.If all the paper burnedinto smoke and computerswent suddenly dark,I would scribble it in the bathin the suds of my oily skin.If the damp sands washed awaywith the tide, leaving the beach alone,I would go to the floor […]
When Film Took More Than Time
I found this pictureof myself when Iwas less than a year old-September 1981 – in my mother’s arms, wading near a beach on the American side of the St. Lawrence River.She held me by my pits with a smile good enough to getmy father’s attention. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in […]
We Need the Soil
because the roots are a gorgeouscatastrophe of gargling raindropsthose empty diamond shaped facescontaining the dreams of elderberriesbecause she fills earth’s basket with the black resinous warmth of grandmother’s handsbreaking the ruby white stalksof rhubarb and celery, reenactingeach contagious morningthe cherished dew of midnight’s tearsas the wild and mischievousrhythms of eternity nears 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 […]