Devon Sproule Old Virginia Block
If my ears hear a sigh of a shiny red violin
Clear by the Rivanna, down in the Blue Ridge.
By the dog bags and trash, by the bottles and cans
And the dead beat brown grass
and the red dirt in the Blue Ridge
Then my home must be around another good old Virginia block.
If my ears hear a note on the cello, so low, then a double stopping bow,
from my headphones, in the Blue Ridge.
Out walking at noon, appearing under the white of the daytime moon,
keeping my big blue balloon in my tight fist, in the Blue Ridge.
Then my home must be around another good old Virginia block.
If my ears hear the sound of a slate rock on the ground,
clicking the drops of the rain coming down, along a front walk, in the Blue Ridge
The rim of dirt on the brim of a brow, the skin of sweat on the handle of a plow,
Miles and miles of tobacco in the south, from a back road, in the Blue Ridge
Then my home must be around another good old Virginia block.
I've got family in Canada, family in New York
I've got friends in every other place I've played
But I can't keep from planting all my plans of family stuff
Down between the weeds in the red dirt clay
And where my ears hear a hundred bees riding that upwarding breeze,
a veil and a bucket by a pair of oak trees,
just another blond kid, in the Blue Ridge.
It's all to make a pattern of love, to roost a lava field of white doves,
with just a pitch fork and a pair of thick gloves,
for your whole life, in the Blue Ridge
The pick up and go - the bent back and the grunt-chucked coal,
The gleam of your white underclothes, in the back seat, in the Blue Ridge
The pile of bacon by a couple fried eggs, kiss marks and hearts on a picnic table leg,
The quartet fretting on up in my head, on my long walk, through the Blue Ridge.
And my home comes up around another good old Virginia block.
