Alleluia.
We pledged allegiance every morning of our lives.
Classroom rang with children's voices under teachers' watchful eyes.
We learned about the world around us at our desks and at dinnertime.
Reminded of the starving children,
cleaned our plates with guilty minds.
Stones in the road played like marbles in the blast,
till a voice called for us to make our way back home.
Stones in the road.
When I was ten,
my father held me on his shoulders above the crowd
to see a train draped in mourning pass slowly through our town.
This widow
kneeled with all their children at the
sacred burial ground in the TV globe,
that long hot summer with all the cities burning down.
Stones in the road flew out from
our bicycle tires.
World to move from all those fires as we raced each other home.
Stones in the road.
Stones.
Pour coffee on the run.
Climb that ladder on my run.
We are the daughters and sons,
but here's the line that's missing.
The starving children have been replaced by souls out on the street.
We give a dollar when we pass and hope our eyes don't meet.
We pencil in,
we cancel out,
we crave the corner sweet.
We kiss your ass,
we make you hold,
we doctor the receipt.
Stones in the road.
Feel out from beneath our wheels.
Another day,
another deal before we get back home.
Stones in the road.
Leave a mark from whence they came.
A thousand points of light or shame,
baby, I don't know.
Stones in the road.
Stones in the road.
Stones in the road.