The Gift of Water

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  “IS water nigh?”
  The plainsmen cry,
As they meet and pass in the desert grass.
  With finger tip
  Across the lip  
I ask the sombre Navajo.
The brown man smiles and answers “Sho!”
With fingers high, he signs the miles
  To the desert spring,
And so we pass in the dry dead grass,  
  Brothers in bond of the water’s ring.

© Hamlin Garland