Saint Francis Fire

Tinsel halos, paper wings,
 Things that burn too easily,
 Angels in the Christmas play,
 Twelve began to sing.
 Lauren wasn't looking, and her
 Gown went up in flames, in flames.
 She screamed, and she fell,
 And she pulled us all down,
 And the fire began to rage.
 The curtains rang down.
 The mothers rushed the stage,
 But helpless, the angels burned
 As the nuns tried to beat out
 The flames with their bare hands.
 And I shrilled,
 And I hurt,
 And I burned,
 And I died.
 The twelve of us died on the stage.
 At the St. Francis Bethlehem Play.
 Mary, Mary, Wilhemina,
 Josephina, Margeret,
 Olivia, Celia,
 Colleta, Irene, Mary, Mary.
 Bernadina was my Christian name but
 My mama always called me
 Her Bird, her Birdie Girl.
 Sister Theotima lost both her hands,
 Because the burns had been so deep.
 2000 mourners bore twelve wooden boxes
 To church on Christmas Eve.
 The priests intoned, and the fathers wept
 With guilt and grief,
 And the mothers rocked with empty arms
 In shock and disbelief.
 And I cried for my family.
 They couldn't see
 The twelve of us prayed to be saved.
 At the St. Francis Bethlehem Play.
 Christmas angels dance in rings,
 The jump the stones with tattered wings.
 And its twenty years beneath the trees
 But it's not the same for me.
 The years drag by, and less and less
 I see the ones I love.
 They mumble their prayers
 As I stumble and stare
 At what those years have done.
 The baby of my family
 Has two little girls of his own.
 New faces I don't recognize,
 They live where I belong.
 And I knew
 What I'd lost,
 What was mine,
 What was gone.
 The twelve of us died on the stage,
 The twelve of us prayed to be saved,
 The twelve of us lay in our graves.
 The St. Francis Bethlehem Play.
 Tinsel halos, paper wings,
 It's all that has been left for me.
 Eternity beneath the trees,
 But it's not the same for me.
 Mary, Mary, Wilhemina,
 Josephina, Margeret,
 Olivia, Celia,
 Colleta, Irene, Mary, Mary.
 Bernadina was my Christian name but
 My mama always called me
 Her Bird, her Birdie Girl.