Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)

Down in the garden district
Where the plants grow strong and tall
Behind the bush there lurks a girl
Who makes them strong and tall
Villagers call her: quicklime girl
Behind her back: quicklime girl
Behind the bush: quicklime girl
She’s the mistress of the salmon salt: quicklime girl
In the fall when plants return
By harvest time, she knows the score
Ripe and ready to the eye
But rotten somehow to the core
Villagers call her: quicklime girl
Behind her back: quicklime girl
Behind the bush: quicklime girl
She’s the mistress of the salmon salt: quicklime girl
A harvest of life, or harvest of death
One body of life, one body of death
And when you’ve gone and choked to death
With laughter and a little step
I’ll prepare the quicklime, friend
For your ripe and ready grave
It’s springtime now and cares subside
And the planting’s almost done
And fertile graves, it seems, exist
Within a mile of that duke’s joint
Where coast guard crews still take their leave
Lying listless in the sun
And the quick lime girl still plies her trade
The reduction of the many from the one
And they call her: quicklime girl
Behind her back: quicklime girl
Behind the bush: quicklime girl
She’s the mistress of the salmon salt: quicklime girl
A harvest of life, a harvest of death
Resumes it’s course each day
Because it exists by schedule
A harvest to live, _____________________
And those that crawl, and those that chirp
And next life’s swans that seem to turn