The history of the earth is a
constrained blessing. With my
warm human hands I receive it,
knowing that it was the sun that
Joshua commanded to be still.
It was not the earth. The earth
cannot remain still. As we move,
with our families, in and out of dying,
a flowing, syncytium over the earth.
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.