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 tender 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