Constellation Blues

You can tell a few things about the soul of a town
The blood of the men gone in the ground
Bankrupt and buried by war that is carried out by messengers now

Was born here and married, too young staring the nose the barrel down
Went milk to whiskey to courthouse sitting with a stone in her wedding gown

My birthday's in two months, I'll be twenty one
I am the second oldest to an only son
Third generation to carry a gun
I've got brown eyes like my mother does

First I saw blood was in a soldier's hair
Was drying to his forehead in the dessert air
I knew his name once but his face I don't dare
Recall in the moments I go back there

Off the record do you see my tears
On my face and in my ears
As the silos reappear
And all of our journeys have led us right back here

There's something in the water we've been passing around
We've eaten the berries there is no doubt
Like our father before us, his paper crown
Kings of nowhere that was ever found

The angels that used to be guarding our beds
They've all wandered off and left us instead
Too strung out and much too sick to defend
Laying in the bathwater all lit up again

It's not a rumor, it's more than true
There's nothing I wouldn't do
Be somewhere with only you
Share a little, these constellation blues

When it comes to my death now let it be slow
And may I be hunted in the hills I know
Let God be certain I was ready to go
But keep that secret from my children though