It ain't the same, I say again--
it looks nothing like it was back then,
when everything was so much bigger
and so alive, but now, go figure.
I walk a block or two, or three,
but there's nothing left for me to see.
What the hell! Where's the beef?
And what has happened to my belief?
Where's the corner grocery store?--
Burned down, you say, ain't here no more.
Where's Ole Moen's ice cream cafe?--
He died and it was closed, you say.
Where's the granary, the old depot,
the railroad tracks that come and go?
Torn up and hauled away somewhere!
God Almighty, what happened here?
My old hometown is gone, it's said--
torn up, burned--and some say dead;
but there's something here that cannot die:
the who, the what, the where and why.