Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)

Heart-carved tree trunk, Yankee bayonet

A sweetheart left behind

Far from the hills and the seas-filled Carolinas,

That’s where my true love lies.

Look for me when the sun-bright swallow

Sings upon the birch bough high.

But you are in the ground with the wolves and the weevils

i will chew on the bone so dry.

But when the sun breaks

To no more bullets in Battle Creek

Then will you make a grave?

For I will be home then,

I will be home then,

I will be home then,

I will be home then,

Then.

When I was a girl, how the hills of Aconie

Made us seem to hem me in.

There, at the fair, where our eyes met careless

Got my heart right pierced by a pin.

But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas,

All the bellies and the bones and the bile?

No, I lingered here with the blankets barren

And my own belly big with child.

But when the sun breaks

To no more bullets in Battle Creek

Then will you make a grave?

For I will be home then,

I will be home then,

I will be home then,

I will be home then,

Then.

Stems and stones and stone walls too

Keep me from you

This skein of skin is all too few

To keep me from you!

Oh my love, though our bodies may be parted,

Though our skin may not touch skin.

Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow,

I will come on the breath of the wind.