Flickering Flame

Mama, I write by a flickering flame,
The night is cold, the road is long,
But I still hear you in every song.

The fields are silent, dressed in frost,
Sunflowers bow for what we have lost.
I march with boys who learned too soon
How childhood breaks, how moments pass.

We joke, we laugh to keep it light,
But courage shakes the most at night.
If fear should find me, know this is true:
Every step forward gets me closer to you.

The road behind me smells like rain,
And iron, smoke, and broken grain.
But when I close my eyes I see
Our yellow fields, our rivers free.

I did not leave because I hate,
I left because I love too much.
This soil knows my every step,
This flag still warms my frozen touch.

I dreamed of writing, not of war,
But when the dark crossed into dawn,
I learned what my two hands are for.

Mama, the wind has grown colder now,
But I swear, I will make it back somehow.
Every step, every mile, I hold you near,
Your voice is my armor, your prayer my spear.

One day I will walk through our yellow fields again,
And you will see your son come home, safe from the war.
Until that day,
Mama, I will be alright.

The road behind me smells like rain,
And iron, smoke, and broken grain.
But when I close my eyes I see
Our yellow fields, our rivers free.

Our yellow fields, our rivers free.

Our yellow fields, our rivers free.