Elsa’s Song

I can hear the cannons calling as though across a dream And I can smell the smoke of hell in every stitch and seam And like flowers, the bodies tumble around this muddied lot I cannot hear them scream, "Forget me not" Your voice, it carries over the hubbub and the hum And it paints the sky and circles high like the beating of a drum You will scream, "I won't forget you," but I'll cover my cold ears It cannot be a lie if no one hears 'Cause although you say good day to me, I know I don't belong And although you hold my hand and say, "I love you," you are wrong Because love does not exist here, in this garden, there's no feeling And you say the words so often that I barely know the meaning And when all the flowers are rotten and all the cannons shot I'll scream, but you won't hear, "Forget me not" And in years to come, you'll wander to the place up on our hill And then you'll cry to our painted sky, "I loved him then, I love him still!" And you'll strew some sage and lilies and roses where I rot Of all the flowers you picked, I knew you would forget Forget-me-nots