Border Blaster - Josh Woodward

I left in the dead of the new moon’s veil

I clung to the side of the camouflaged trail

I was over the river before the sky was awake

I kept my ear pressed to the transistor radio

This station was all I had left from my little home

I don’t want to leave but this sorrow was all I could take

A static-y voice through the crackling speaker

Has followed me all the way here

The longer I go, we both will get weaker

Till one of us just disappears

I don’t want to go but my duty is stronger than fear

I worked 20 years without nothing to show

So I left behind everything that I’ve known

In the hope that my family won’t need to go hungry again

The stopped me the last time I tried this migration

I’m the overflow man in this melting pot nation

But the only thing here in this desert is a northerly wind

I’m not really sure where the oxygen’s going

But it followed me all the way here

The line on the map didn’t stop it from blowing

It’s free, and that one thing is clear

I don’t want to go but my duty is stronger than fear

And the sun, it doesn’t care

If it’s here, or if it’s over there

It just passes through the stratosphere

Until it goes away

I once watched a sparrow fly south for the winter

Her feathers were thin, and her body was thinner

But we had enough there to feed her until she was well

The seasons are cycles, they go back and forth

One day it’s south and the next it is north

The just need a little relief till the snow starts to melt

Today she’s returning to look for her nest

And she’s followed me all the way here

With nothing to hold but the meat on her breast

And the promise of one more year

The radio man is still playing his songs

But the signal is not quite as clear

I’d rather be back at the place I belong

But my family is needing me here

I don’t want to go but my duty is stronger than fear

I don’t want to go but my duty is stronger than fear