Stones In The Road

(Mary Chapin Carpenter) When we were young, we pledged allegiance every morning of our lives The classroom rang with children's voices under teacher's watchful eye We learned about the world around us at our desks and at dinnertime Reminded of the starving children, we cleaned our plates with guilty minds And the stones in the road shone like diamonds in the dust And then a voice called to us to make our way back home 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 His widow kneeled with all their children at the sacred burial ground And the TV glowed that long hot summer with all the cities burning down And the stones in the road flew out beneath our bicycle tires Worlds removed from all those fires as we raced each other home And now we drink our coffee on the run, we climb that ladder rung by rung We are the daughters and the sons, and here's the line that's missing The starving children have been replaced by souls out on the street We give a dollar when we pass, and hope our eyes don't meet