Restless Visions Poem by Nellie Isabelle Steward Cooper

Petulant child,
what was it you thought
You would be given?
What far universe,
What heaven

This is your place
The earth
There is no other earth,

No other place,
no other heaven

When you think of earth
You know it is
the deepest thing in you

To look where your two feet stand
And know that everyone
stands thus

On the earth as you do,
All children of one another

Where would you stand
if you did not

Stand on this earth?
The question being this:

Will I now stand by her?
This earth that gave us birth