Lance Brett Hall

Stories Make Meaning. How Do We Make Stories?

On the Flatness of the Earth

Published

Some people say,
“The Earth is flat”
against all odds.

I cannot understand their lack of faith
in our collective reasoning.
But I can understand the strangeness
telling people that my home is flat.

I see San Gabriel and all its snowy mountains,
blocking my horizon from the window
and think of all the tens of millions
squeezed between them and the sea.
My thoughts are on my prairie childhood,
a circleflat horizon
and how the world was nearly empty,
just waiting to be filled.
I look again and see the freeways and
their pavement in the sunny weather
and long for naked rows of earth in fall.

The earth is round and spinning on its axis,
But I can understand the strangeness
telling people that my home is flat.