Homecoming (PDF)

If I die

In this place so far from home

And I never make my living

From my native soil again,

Don't leave me where these strangers

Will walk across my bones.

Take me back and lay me with my next of kin.

There were many things

My father could not say.

He turned the sod and swung the rod

And kept his feelings locked inside.

When things around the homeplace

Went from bad to worse to stay,

He sat in silence with my brothers as I said goodbye.

Homecoming dreams are bittersweet to the taste . . .

Homecoming promises are hope to the displaced . . .

They echo through my soul with the distant music of "Amazing Grace" . . .

Let there be a Homecoming someday.

I have learned to breathe

Beneath this sea of light.

I've won and lost and paid the cost

To find a future for myself.

But the ties of blood and earth still bind

Across the years and miles,

And in my memories the old ways still are dearly held.

Homecoming dreams are bittersweet to the taste . . .

Homecoming promises are hope to the displaced . . .

They echo through my soul with the distant music of "Amazing Grace" . . .

Let there be a Homecoming someday.

I've been cursed as a deserter

And prayed for like a prodigal son.

Seems no matter where I've turned,

My loyalties have fallen under the gun . . .

                under the gun . . .

Homecoming dreams are bittersweet to the taste . . .

Homecoming promises are hope to the displaced . . .

They echo through my soul with the distant music of "Amazing Grace" . . .

Let there be a Homecoming someday.

Words & Music:  Michael Cody

Copyright:  Window on the West

Homecoming.mp3