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

Grandpa's gun, the black bear claw

They took her doll



When sister Laurie says "Amen"

We won't hear anything

The ten-car train will take that word

A 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 day 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

The tender shade, the autumn leaves

The buzzard's wing



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 his Resurrection Fern