Souvenir

On the bank of a stream
We were safe, we were clean
We were pushing the sun with our love
And our teeth, and our tongues
We were picking out stones from the sand
For the house that we planned to die in one day
And the shade from the roof we had made
Would cover our heads 'til the day we would wither away
Souvenirs of ourselves
But the sound of the settling ground
Took shape in our minds
First a psalm, then a storm, then a calm
Then a moral they'll make from whatever's left of us
At the fringe of a field we were cold and concealed
You were covered in grace
Found a shape in the gold of the grain
And it swallowed us whole
But the closer you were to the words
The less you could say
So we kept to the furrows and slept 'til we were not scared
And we knotted ourselves to that memory
When you first saw your soul
You were seven years old
It was caught in the reeds
It was not quite as bright as you'd thought
I could see from afar
So I came, cut it free, and then stayed
Until it followed you home
Settled down with the ghosts in the ground
It was all we had hoped
And filling our pans up with gold was as hard as it seemed
'til we realized that everything shone
Just as long as we held it close
So we held it so close