Kitchen Garden Symphony

Lyrics

[Intro]
Good morning, ash handle.
You and I, we have work before the sun is high.

[Verse 1]
The air is still damp, smells of night and wet stone.
Cold seeps through my linen shift, down to the bone.
One row for the beans, pole and bush, a green wall.
One for the corn, a prayer in each kernel before the fall.
One for the squash, to sprawl and feed us through the frost.
My back knows this rhythm, the price and the cost.

[Chorus]
And this is the music.
The kitchen garden symphony.
The scrape of the iron blade on a hidden rock.
The snap of the green bean, clean off the stalk.
The rustle of the potato leaves, a dry paper sound.
The steady thump of a heart that works the tended ground.

[Verse 2]
Past the tall flax for the spinning wheel, past the parsley and the thyme.
Here is the second garden, a story told without rhyme.
Yarrow for a bleeding cut, a bitter, healing tea.
Mint for a troubled stomach, a gift from a honeybee.
The dark leaves of the comfrey, a poultice for the ache.
Their scents hang in the still room, for goodness gracious sake.

[Chorus]
And this is the music.
The kitchen garden symphony.
The scrape of the iron blade on a hidden rock.
The snap of the green bean, clean off the stalk.
The rustle of the potato leaves, a dry paper sound.
The steady thump of a heart that works the tended ground.

[Bridge]
The sun goes gold behind the trees.
My hands are stained with soil and berry juice.
The basket is heavy on my hip, a silent, welcome truce.
This isn't for a ledger book.
This isn't for a name carved in stone.
It is for the small wooden box of saved seeds, a future I have sown.
It is for the pantry shelves, groaning in October's chill alone.

[Outro]
The earth breathes out the day's heat.
A final row to water.
Good night, my green chorus.
Rest now, my son, my daughter.