[ music: jerome augustyniak/words: natalie merchant ]


Detroit to d.c. night train, capitol, parts east.
Lone young man takes a seat.
And by the rhythm of the rails, reading all his mothers mail from a city boy in a jungle town postmarked saigon.
Hell go live his mothers dream, join the slowest parade hell ever see.
Her weight of sorrows carried long and carried far.
Take these, tommy, to the wall.

Metro line to the mall site with a tour of japanese.
Hes wandering and lost until a vet in worn fatigues takes him down to where they belong.
Near a soldier, an ex-marine with a tattooed dagger and eagle trembling, he bites his lip beside a widow breaking down.
She takes her purple heart, makes a fist, strikes the wall.
All come to live a dream, to join the slowest parade theyll ever see.
Their weight of sorrows carried long and carried far, taken to the wall.

Its 40 paces to the year that he was slain.
His hands slipping down the wall for its slick with rain.
How would life have ever been the same if this wall had carved in it one less name?
But for christs sake, hes been dead over 20 years.
He leaves the letters asking, who caused my mothers tears, was it washington or the viet cong?
Slow deliberate steps are involved.
He takes them away from the black granite wall toward the other monuments so white and clean.

O, potomac, what youve seen.
Abraham had his war too, but an honest war.
Or so its taught in school.