When the Earth Cried Out
Once upon a time the earth cried out.
She cried out with a sound so tremulous that the universe paused.
It was the cry of bereavement, of trouble and sorrow.
She did so without agenda, only as one who bears witness to her own struggles.
And when the pause had ceased and all turned back into the natural rhythms of their motions, the trajectory of orbits and expansions and contractions all carried forth with infinitesimal difference, the change trickled down to the apex of the small planet who sighed and carried on.