When Clay Sings by Byrd Baylor

Pieces of broken pots are scattered over the desert hillsides of the Southwest.

The indigenous there treat them with respect -- "Every piece of clay is a piece of someone's life," they say. the children try to imagine those lives that took place in the desert they think of as their own. Clay has its own small voice, and sings. Its song has lasted for thousands of years.

Byrd Baylor's prose-poem as simple and powerful as the clay pots, sings too.