To Tundra

Meet me at

St. Nicholas

Among the oaks

Behind the church

That sway like pig-tailed girls

As summer wind whistles

Around your bare-shin knees

And the forsythia leaves

In the shade

Lay with me

Tickled by

The feather reed

That's where the trees grow old

Under the ivy's hold

As you in my two arms

Equally safe from harm

And in a hazy daydream

Our bodies married the stream

And we broke down into pebbles and silt

The water ran from the fields

Until the oceans we filled

And found the seabed the comfiest quilt

There was more life in the weeds

Than in the few hundred seats

In rows from transept to chancel to nave

And when their anger had paused

I turned and answered their calls

With "You're just audience,

I'm the applause."

We take on the burden of

All these sad-eyed children

With lilies bunched in our hands

We fake our concern

And speak softly as the surgeon

Tells wife to cancel her plans

Take a body to water

Take a body to tundra

Just take me with you as well

Please take a body to water

Take a body to tundra

Just take me with you as well