A Poem for Pat Who Builds Houses

Ethel Arnold Tilden

You build in patterns too:
You fling wings wide,
Like wings of birds in flight;
In rhythm your chimneys climb;
Your cadenced roofs reach high,
Like music reaching for the sky,
And spread like melody—
Like melody upon the wind of night;
Your windows make sweet balanced rhyme;
You tie your visioning-come-true
To earth with terraces, lest it should rise,
As swallows do,
And melt into the skies.

To look at all is to look long,
And to be satisfied—
As if one heard a perfect song.