Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)

Down in the garden district

Where the plants grow strong and tall

Behind the bush there lurks a girl

Who makes them strong and tall

Villagers call her: quicklime girl

Behind her back: quicklime girl

Behind the bush: quicklime girl

She's the mistress of the salmon salt: quicklime girl

In the fall when plants return

By harvest time, she knows the score

Ripe and ready to the eye

But rotten somehow to the core

Villagers call her: quicklime girl

Behind her back: quicklime girl

Behind the bush: quicklime girl

She's the mistress of the salmon salt: quicklime girl

A harvest of life, or harvest of death

One body of life, one body of death

And when you've gone and choked to death

With laughter and a little step

I'll prepare the quicklime, friend

For your ripe and ready grave

It's springtime now and cares subside

And the planting's almost done

And fertile graves, it seems, exist

Within a mile of that duke's joint

Where coast guard crews still take their leave

Lying listless in the sun

And the quick lime girl still plies her trade

The reduction of the many from the one

And they call her: quicklime girl

Behind her back: quicklime girl

Behind the bush: quicklime girl

She's the mistress of the salmon salt: quicklime girl

A harvest of life, a harvest of death

Resumes it's course each day

It comes as if by schedule

a harvester lifts his arms to the rain

the toes that crawl

the knees that jerk

the necks like swans that seems to turn

as if inclined to gasp or pray