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 room

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 train will take that word

That fledgling bird

And the falling 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 bound 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

But 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 all wound around in baling wire

All the more a pair of underwater pearls

Than the oak tree and his Resurrection Fern