Lord, I ask a garden in a quiet spot where there may be a brook with a good flow, an humble little house covered with bell-flowers, and a wife and a son who shall resemble Thee. I should wish to live many years, free from hates, and make my verses, as the rivers that moisten the earth, fresh and pure. Lord, give me a path with trees and birds. I wish that you would never take my mother, for I should wish to tend to her as a child and put her to sleep with kisses, when somewhat old she may need the sun. I wish to sleep well, to have a few books, an affectionate dog that will spring upon my knees, a flock of goats, all things rustic, and to live off the soil tilled by my own hand. To go into the field and flourish with it; to seat myself at evening under the rustic eaves, to drink in the fresh mountain perfumed air and speak to my little one of humble things. At night to relate him some simple tale, teach him to laugh with the laughter of water and put him to sleep thinking that he may later on keep that freshness of the moist grass. And afterward, the next day, rise with dawn admiring life, bathe in the brook, milk my goats in the happiness of the garden and add a strophe to the poem of the world.
— Alfonso Guillén Zelaya
“Lord I Ask a Garden”, Honduran poet, born 1887