"Well...." She drew out the word slowly. "It's not what they were about, exactly. It's what they said, not out loud, but down deep. It's like getting a present that means an awful lot to you; it's not the present, but the way it makes your nose tickle and your stomach feel." She smiled wistfully.
"They were all written a long time ago, even before the First Generation, by men back on Earth, but they seemed to be written just for us.... One was about a bird, and how it made the poet feel to watch it fly and hear it sing; it made him feel all warm inside.... And one was about a young girl who worked in the fields, reaping grain...." That image seemed to reverberate in her mind, for she was quiet a moment, as if to listen for the fading echoes.
"I think that would be the most wonderful thing. To help things grow, with your own two hands, and to harvest them when they're ripe and waiting, not 'ponics, like Sam, but really growing out of the Earth."
"Someday," he said softly, "you're going to write the kind of poetry they wrote."
Marte looked down at her hands.
"I want to do so many things.... Maybe help things grow, most of all.... I think there must be a sort of poetry in that, too.
"Johnny?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think we could get a farm? It wouldn't have to be a very big one; just a little farm, where we could raise things?"
"If you want it, Marte."