I can offer an interpretation on one level, but there's probably a larger metaphorical meaning I'm missing.
I think the main characters in this song are mourning something that they can't put behind them - probably the death of their child ("the baby's breath, our bravery wasted, and our shame"). It's not that they'll stop living their lives (they're still "pitching glass at cornfield crows and folding clothes"), but that for a while it'll just be going through the motions (living "like our ghosts will live"). But like the boys, they'll carry around the mementos of a meaningless and cruel tragedy around with them ("grandma's gun and the black bear claw that took her dog") and stare the tragedy in the face ("we'll see everything, in the timid shade of the autumn leaves and the buzzard's wing"; note the two signs of dying: autumn and a carrion bird).
I think the chorus is supposed to evoke a lot of gut feeling: imagine that tight feeling in your gut, like your belly was wound up in wire, seeing yourself and someone you love as you really are (undressed), next to the unpoetic and uncaring evidence of something that used to be beautiful (the ashes of a fire). It's such a cold and sad image, but we're told that even though the two of them are out of reach (underwater), they're still beautiful (pearls), and one day they'll come back into themselves (like a resurrection fern that, though appearing to be dead, is just waiting for water).
I can offer an interpretation on one level, but there's probably a larger metaphorical meaning I'm missing.
I think the main characters in this song are mourning something that they can't put behind them - probably the death of their child ("the baby's breath, our bravery wasted, and our shame"). It's not that they'll stop living their lives (they're still "pitching glass at cornfield crows and folding clothes"), but that for a while it'll just be going through the motions (living "like our ghosts will live"). But like the boys, they'll carry around the mementos of a meaningless and cruel tragedy around with them ("grandma's gun and the black bear claw that took her dog") and stare the tragedy in the face ("we'll see everything, in the timid shade of the autumn leaves and the buzzard's wing"; note the two signs of dying: autumn and a carrion bird).
I think the chorus is supposed to evoke a lot of gut feeling: imagine that tight feeling in your gut, like your belly was wound up in wire, seeing yourself and someone you love as you really are (undressed), next to the unpoetic and uncaring evidence of something that used to be beautiful (the ashes of a fire). It's such a cold and sad image, but we're told that even though the two of them are out of reach (underwater), they're still beautiful (pearls), and one day they'll come back into themselves (like a resurrection fern that, though appearing to be dead, is just waiting for water).