John K. Samson
Elegy for Elsabet
[Verse 1]
So the fields are stubble, the garden's done
Where the scary scarecrow stands
Sees her holding up horizons with her hands

She's so tired of reading daddy's lips
That essay on a frown
Watch her memories of human voices drown

[Chorus]
Let horsey bray break between the thunder boom
Make grasses' swish meet the crickets' ring
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard

[Verse 2]
So the back lanes tie the city down
A mess of dirty string
Winter dies the same way every spring

As the sky tries on its uniform
Of turned off TV gray
And the ways we watched her watch us walk away

[Chorus]
Let every rain clatter down at groaning streets
Make footsteps tick, talk to echoed walls
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard