Foxglove Through the Clearcut

There was a man who used to live by the ocean But he never set foot in the sea It made him nervous that the water was always in motion And he feared the creatures who swam beneath And when I asked him how he'd ended up there Above a world he would never know He said he'd driven all the way across America And when he got to thе edge, therе was nowhere left to go Nowhere left to go Nowhere left to go Nowhere left to go Nowhere left to go He said that nothing lives long, only the earth and the mountains As he quoted Black Kettle's death song The words drifting off into the emptiness Of this great land where we've never belonged And while the frontiers are ever-expanding Our living rooms fall into disarray And no one seems interested in fixing what they've broken They just sweep the pieces into the bushes and slip away Slowly slip away Slowly slip away Slowly slip away Slowly slip away And now, he and I watch the foxglove grow through the clearcut Where a forest once grew high and wild For what is a funeral without flowers? And ten thousand tombstones reaching for the sky Reaching for the sky Reaching for the sky Reaching for the sky Reaching for the sky