To Build a Home

There's a boat that leaves Napoli Every Thursday in the morning And a nervous bride can share a bed with her soldier from the States For a week the ocean carries them Over lost and churning water And they land in Royal Harbour And in Pennsylvania Station Where they board a train that slices Like a scythe through the fields of America This is Albany This is Buffalo This is Cleveland This is South Bay This is Chicago This is Osceola Station Where a track will take them deeper into Iowa To winter sun And three hundred acres Waiting to be tamed And blade of grass By blade of grass And ear of corn By ear of corn And bale of hay By day by day They build themselves a home And day by day And year by year From boy to man From calf to steer What's lost from there may not grow here But comes the sun Look what they've done They've built themselves a home At 21 a girl begins To grasp the world and how it spins She grabs a box of safety pins And builds herself a home And home is safe And home is fair The porch, the bath The kitchen chair The sharp and unfamiliar air That blow by blow She comes to know To build herself a home With a son And a daughter And the million miles between The fire she used to set The hearts she used to break The lies she used to tell And the woman she grew up to be I learn to speak I learn to sew I learn to let the longings go The tractor wheel, the foot of snow I build myself a home I change my words I change my name The fields go dry The horse goes lame The county fair, the football game For 18 years It stays the same For 18 years I'm proud I came And built myself A home