On Pleasant Hill

On a road of yellow sand

Where an old family cemetery lies

We came to visit each spring

The dearly departed and sing songs of praise

Now the road was long and wound

Past a farmhouse near Pleasant Hill

And a white A-frame country church

And a country store at a fork in the road

There it was on Pleasant Hill

I met a fair one named Lillie

Singing sugar-coated hymns

To the Lord in that little church

Her eyes were emerald like the sea

And her lips were as red as cherry candy

Her touch as soft as angel hair;

She walked with the grace of a queen

Crowned with a halo of gold

I dared to ask her name

And she said, "Lillie"

With a demure little smile

She was fourteen, and so was I

She said her father was a farmer

And her mother stayed at home

She went to school at Deep Run

Now a picnic was spread

On wire tables strung between trees

There in that country churchyard

The First Sunday in May

The sun was at two o'clock

And the sky was azure blue

Lillie brought sandwiches and a banana cake

And said she made them herself

I told her I could hardly wait to taste the cake

And I made like I was going to snatch a piece

And she slapped my hand and said, "Behave"

Everything was perfect, nothing amiss

Lillie spoke sweet words about her life

And I listened rapt with attention

While we sat on the church steps

Eating banana sandwiches and banana cake

Suddenly, the sky grew dark and a cloud

Appeared across a field from the church

As if it were the finger of God

The cloud dropped out of the sky to the ground

The wind picked up

And the cloud whorled and blew

Moving across the field towards the church

And someone yelled, "Tornado!"

I looked and Lillie was running

Towards the ditch at the road

With everyone else in flight

. . . .

Lillie and three others were picked up

And carried far away

Now she's in Heaven

As we honor her memory today

Prettier than anything I've seen

Taken away before the world could lay claim to her sweet soul

Her body lies where her spirit won't go

In the cold ground of the old family cemetery on Pleasant Hill

Now it rained, and it rained, and it rained that day

The tornado had gone by me

Sitting on the steps of that church

With Lillie's banana cake still in my hands