Song Lyrics

Our daughter is one and a half
You have been dead eleven days
I got on the boat and came to the place
Where the three of us were going to build our house
If you had lived
You died though
So I came here alone with our baby and the dust of your bones

I can't remember, were you into Canada geese?
Is it significant?
These hundreds on the beach?
Or were they just hungry
For mid-migration seaweed?

What about foxgloves
Is that a flower you liked?
I can't remember
You did most of my remembering for me
And now I stand untethered
In a field full of wild foxgloves
Wondering if you're there
Or if a flower means anything
And what could anything mean
In this crushing absurdity
I brought a chair from home
I'm leaving it on the hill
Facing west and north
And I poured out your ashes on it
I guess so you can watch the sunset
But the truth is I don't think of that dust as you

You are the sunset

Phillip Whitman Elvrum