This touching song is about her neighbors, Roland and Ethel. They are (or were, they have both since died) an old couple who befriended Cheryl. By the time you finish listening to this song, you feel like you want to meet them.
This song can still bring tears to my eyes when I listen to it. Here is a live version from YouTube.
Cheryl mentioned once that she was talking to Kenny White (a piano player who appears on many of Cheryl's albums, and often appears with her when they are in the same area). She told him that she sort of ripped him off on this song. Her finger picking was her attempt to cop one of Kenny's piano licks. Kenny laughed and told her that the lick was his attempt to cop her finger picking lick. 
- Quarter Moon
- Words And Music By
- Cheryl Wheeler
- And they seem to know each other very well
- They speak across the garden and not a soul could tell
- They can read the summer sky and they can hear the back brook swell
- And they seem to know each other very well
- And they drive up north on sunday afternoons
- And he buys her wooden windmills and whales and quarter moons
- She feeds the birds all winter and she knows them by their tunes
- And they drive up north on sunday afternoons
- (Chorus)
- And all summer long, they make the garden grow
- Keep the green so strong
- Oh, wish them well, for standing on their own
- And they buried their old dog in their backyard
- With a fence and plastic roses
- And St. Francis standing guard
- She speaks of him quite often to this day she takes it hard
- And they buried their old dog in their backyard
- She brings me plants and flowers all the time
- And we dig the holes together she has to help with mine
- When she pats the soil around them oh my god, her eyes can shine
- She brings me plants and flowers all the time
- (Chorus)
- And they speak about their lives as almost gone
- Waiting for the sunset from an old and distant dawn
- Selling off the land except the part they're living on
- And they speak of their lives as almost gone
- And they seem to know each other very well
- They speak across the garden and not a soul could tell
- They can read the summer sky and they can hear the back brook swell
- And they seem to know each other very well
- 4/30/85
- (P) May 27, 2003
- Penrod And Higgins Music / Amachrist Music
- ACF Music Group
- International Copyright Reserved