the noise in the pool

"You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog large as myself, that my father bought me. They are better than beings because they know, but do not tell; and the noise in the pool at noon excels my piano."

-a letter from Emily Dickinson to Thomas Wentworth Higginson

garden song

Inch by inch, row by row 

Gonna make this garden grow 

All it takes is a rake and a hoe

 And a piece of fertile ground

 Inch by inch, row by row 

Someone bless these seeds I sow

 Someone warm them from below

 Till the rain comes tumbling down

 Pulling weeds and picking stones

 Man is made of dreams and bones

 Feel the need to grow my own

 Cause the time is close at hand

 Grain for grain, sun and rain

 Find my way in nature's chain

 Tune my body and my brain 

To the music from the land 

Plant your rows straight and long

 Temper them with prayer and song

 Mother Earth will make you strong

 If you give her love and care

 Old crow watching hungrily

 From his perch in yonder tree

 In my garden It's as free 

As that feathered thief up there

-David Mallet