The Geographical Blues

My little boy asked, Mama, where are we from?

Yeah my baby boy asked me, Ma, where are we from?

On the long-distance phone I said, honey, how come?


He said well, it just seems we’ve been flung east and west

Like our people are scattered, north, south, east, and west.

I said sure, but that happens with folks on a quest


They were pioneers, refugees, needing to roam

They were teacherfolk, preacherfolk, wanting to roam

And my boy said, I get it, but where is our home?


Oh I’ll write you a letter, babe, make it fly high

Old blue airmail letter that flies through the sky

And I’ll tell you the stories to make you see why


Now our telephone connection was getting real poor

Yeah our voice-phone connection got scratchy and poor

And he said, never mind, Mom, I know all that lore


‘Bout the last-borns who needed to make their own way

All the war-born, and poor-born, who made their own way

All the many who left, and the few who did stay


There was God, there was love, there was traveling to college

I know about God, love, and leaving for college

But we don’t have a home port, for all of our knowledge!


I said, son, maybe home is the stories we tell

All our family pride and good stories we tell

And I heard him sigh, yes, Mom, I know that real well


And I wished I could crawl through the telephone line

Just make myself small through the T-Mobile line

But geography kept me from hugging what’s mine


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