I was raised where the ground don’t dry, Where the air hums low and the buzzards fly. Mama lit her stove with cattail smoke, Said, “Boy, this land’ll skin you if you joke.” I learned to pray in a rusted tin, With a jug of rain and mosquito hymns. Ain’t no church bell callin’ my soul, Just frogs in the dark and a fishin’ pole. Swampborn, I bleed that mud, My veins run thick with the river’s blood. The crows still sing where the lost ones wait, And the ghosts still hum in the cattail reeds. I cut my teeth on a gator’s grin, Drank that moonlight soaked in sin. Ain’t no city light can drown this shade, Ain’t no man alive could make me trade. The snakes keep secrets, the owls all know, The way the dead breathe down below. And I hum that tune in the heat’s long throat, A swamp song carved in a crawfish boat. Swampborn, I bleed that mud, My veins run thick with the river’s blood. The crows still sing where the lost ones wait, And the ghosts still hum in the cattail reeds. When the storms roll in, I don’t run, I let the lightning crown my tongue. The bayou don’t forgive or lie, It just hums you home when it’s time to die. Now my house leans like an old man’s sigh, Floorboards hum when the ghosts walk by. But I keep a flame by the water’s bend, For the lost ones waitin’ for the end. Swampborn, I bleed that mud, My veins run thick with the river’s blood. The crows still sing where the lost ones wait, And the ghosts still hum in the cattail reeds. Swampborn… where the cypress prays, I’ll die the same dark, faithful way.
