She cleared the sea wall and swamped the streets,

She took the ground beneath our feet;

She tore the graveyard gateway free,

And swept the caskets to the sea.

Two-hundred-year-old trees were snapped,

And neighborhoods wiped off the map;

With faces, voices swept away

Into the realm of yesterday.

And then she comes back with an olive branch,

And then she comes back on eagles' wings;

And then she comes back with Leaves of Grass,

And then she comes back for victory.

To find and keep, to lose and weep,

She turns 'round like a radar sweep;

She turns 'round on a broken word,

Circling like a mockingbird.

And on the bridges we were left,

And she was blind and she was deaf

To everything except her need

To see the world around her bleed.

And then she comes back...

I don't chase storms across the plains,

And I don't fly through hurricanes;

But to me it seems a mystery

How she always seems to follow me.

The media will come and go,

The TV and the radio;

But their visit will be brief

And then they'll leave you to your grief.

And when the river leaves the streets,

And when the birds land at your feet;

We stand beneath a Bible sky

And scavenge where the city lies.

And then she comes back...