I Am A Town

I'm a town in Carolina

I'm a detour on a ride

For a phone call and a soda

I'm a blur from the driver's side

I'm the last gas for an hour

If you're going 25

I am Texaco and tobacco

I am dust you leave behind

I am peaches in September

And corn from a roadside stall

I'm the language of the natives

I'm a cadence and a drawl

I'm the pines behind the graveyard

And the cool beneath their shade

Where the boys have left their beer cans

I am weeds between the graves

My porches sag and lean

With old back men and children

My sleep is filled with dreams

I never can fulfill them

I am a town

I'm a church beside the highway

Where the ditches never drain

I'm a Baptist, like my daddy

And Jesus knows my name

I am memory and stillness

I am lonely in old age

I am not your destination

I am clinging to my ways

I am a town

I'm a town in Carolina

I am billboards in the fields

I'm an old truck up on cinder blocks

Missing all my wheels

I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American

And "Southern Serves the South"

I am tucked behind the Jaycees sign

On the rural route

I am a town

I am a town

I am a town

Southbound