though our skin may not touch skin

"Heart-carved tree trunk, yankee bayonet
A sweetheart left behind
Far from the hills of the sea-swelled 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
All a'chew upon your bones 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 Oconee
Made a seam to hem me in
There at the fair when our eyes caught, 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
Though 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

Stems and bones and stone walls too
Could keep me from you
Skein of skin is all too few
To keep me from you

But 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"

I'm having some trouble getting over how fantastic this song is. The sound of it fits so perfectly with the lyrics, the lyrics are so pretty, it's Civil War-era love, it features Laura Veirs... The Decemberists have a thing for people having a thing for dead people, and dead people having a thing for living people, and I have a thing for the Decemberists.

Tonight I was reminded that no matter how many northern winters you go through, you just never get used to that skin-reddening bitter wind, and the primitive, mad desire for warmth. Downtown Chicago is as good as Antarctica, with that wind off the lake.. I am a big-city eskimo.

Now, after hours spent laboring over a still-insufficient hum paper (but one which I did edit according to my TA's suggestions), I will sleep. But first, an actual depiction of how messy my room is in the height of exam distraction: