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 And when sister Lowery says amen, we won't hear anything The ten-car train 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 all wound around in baling wire All the more a pair of underwater pearls Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern