White Crosses

(album: Scream & Whisper - 2004)

Well I packed all of my things into this blanket
To call this year to earn coyotes fill
Kiss my wife and kids goodbye choke back the quiver in my breath
And took my first steps into this corridor of death

If I'm lucky I will make it to a drain
With 500 of my brothers, I would share the strain
Of standing in this boxcar praying for rain
It's the only the way we will quench our thirst

[Chorus:]
In these gardens of white crosses
Growing in the California sand
In these gardens of white crosses
We are the children of poverty trying to a make a stand

If we make it past the border, we will scatter
Vanish just like smoke in autumn wind
I will run until my color will not matter
Hoping I can find some work or possibly a friend

There are others who have made it here
They will show me how to find a job and a place to lay my head
And I cannot be concerned with dreams of my children
For there are 5 others in line for my bed

[Chorus:]
In these gardens of white crosses
Growing in the California sand
In these gardens of white crosses
We are the children of poverty trying to a make a stand

I will gladly pick your peaches or clean your hotel rooms
I will do the jobs American won't do
With cell phones to their heads and $700 dollar shoes
I will risk my life 'cause it's all I have to lose

Let the devil in the mountains promise me a ride
Found an 18 wheeler and put all of us inside
And just outside of victory, 19 of us died
None of our bodies hit the floor

And so my wife she still wonders when I'm coming home
The riches that I promised her for leaving her alone
I said I would send her all that I could save
But I ended up in California in an unknown grave

[Chorus:]
In these gardens of white crosses growing in the California sand
In these gardens of white crosses we are the children of poverty trying to a make a stand
[repeat]