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