I built a small cottage in a green hilly place,

I lovingly drove every nail,

I built it on bedrock and braced it with care

So it would withstand every gale;

 

With cheerful bright colors I painted each room,

My weathervane set with a spin;

Then turned on the lamps, and I opened the doors

And invited the people in.

 

And far down the hill in the valley below

A river flows tranquilly down to the sea;

The rains wash my cottage and flow to the streams

That follow their destiny down to the sea.

Someday I shall join them, for I am a part

Of the flow and the river that’s calling to me.

 

Yet the people will come to the cottage I built,

With my hands and my heart, the cottage I built,

For to enter therein makes them free.

 

 

A great castle stands on the top of a hill,

Its buttresses reach for the sky

As if calling for God to help shore up the weight

They support with a strained voiceless cry.

 

It fills up the view with its massive gray stone,

Its influence shadows the land,

The people inside have forgotten the fact

That those mighty walls rest upon sand.

 

But far down the hill in the valley below

A river flows tranquilly down to the sea;

And each drop of rain on those great castle walls

Carries one grain of sand far away to the sea.

And deep in the gloom of that castle surround

Waits a modest small cottage once built there by me.

 

The folk will yet come to the cottage I built,

With my hands and my heart, the cottage I built,

And their entry will still make them free.

 

Upon the departure of my friend Joe Smith,

December 1983