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-skin 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 day dream
Our bodies married the stream
And we grow down into pebbles and silt

The water ran from the fields
Until the oceans we filled
And found the sea-bed 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 your 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 children
Tells wife to cancel her plans

Take a body to water, take a body to tundra
Just take me with you as well