When I walk again above your verdant vales,

North Carolina,

I'll be a bit better off than I am, as of now.

Your cool winds talk so strong through the pinecones, but your streets can't roam straight.

I can walk by the house where I learned of your Modern curse,

Where, 'midst pained and foggy memories, I might ask in thoughtful silence:

Why is the green always more lush in memory?

Did that bright, Northern city beat your ass like the trash you are?-

The trash you should and still could be proud to be!-

There's still that smoke-smell about your old, electric guitar.

You cannot hide where you were born and raised,

For that Southern land is where my Fathers are from!

With nightcrawler blood, dark and stained,

Upon your casting thumb.

You may fight and fiend,

Bicker and beg,

You might even sell your family's old guns.

But you'll always be,

She dear to me,

For I, too, sprouted from the ruddy, Raleigh clay,

And I too, was weathered long in my youth by the bold, Neuse's raging waters,

You'll always be a Carolinan daughter,

And I, a Carolinian son.