Resurrection Fern

In our days we will live

Like our ghosts will live...

Pitching glass at the cornfield crows

And folding clothes

Like stubborn boys across the road

We'll keep everything...

Grandma's gun and the black bear claw

That took her dog

When sister Laurie says, "Amen"

We won't hear anything...

The ten-car trains will take that word

That fledgling bird

And the fallen house across the way

It'll keep everything...

The baby's breath

Our bravery wasted and our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire

Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire

All the more a pair of underwater pearls

Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days we will say

What our ghosts will say...

We gave the world what it saw fit

And what'd we get?

Like stubborn boys with big green eyes

We'll see everything...

In the timid shade of the autumn leaves

And the buzzard's wing

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire

Our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire

All the more a pair of underwater pearls

Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern