Where Deer Sleep

My three-year-old son
asked me where deer sleep.
So I took him there. Stepping
into a space that is not meant
for fathers and sons, we found
a ritual that has nothing to do
with us. An original grace. A serenity
that evokes the burden of redemption.
That place where deer sleep, under a
plumbeous sky, the pods of grass bent
toward the center of the earth. Otherworldly
crop circles and a feeling of trespassing. 
For me if not for him. A child cannot connect
with the mystery without stepping on it.

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.