I Never Think of Mississippi

She said, I never think about Mississippi    
And if I do, it is always in the past  
Going to visit your daddy's relatives    
With a carload of kids in the backseat    
Driving down some country dirt road    
Yellow dust clouds boiling up behind the car    
On our way to unpainted shacks    
Surrounded by cotton fields    
Or a singlewide house trailer    
With a catfish pond next to it    
They were always surprised to see us    
And he was always happy to see them    
They would invite us in to sit    
To talk about the old days    
And catch up on who's been doing what    
You kids would eventually wander outside    
To make friends with a hound dog    
Or explore the farm until it was time to go    
And your daddy would always make them the same promise,    
"I'll see you again when the dogwoods bloom"    
    
. . . Dirt roads and cotton fields    
Ramshackle shacks and hound dogs    
Drinking cold water from the well    
Rusting farm implements and    
Elderly wrinkled faces smiling    
The dogwoods are blooming    
And she said, I never think of Mississippi anymore,    
But instead of how I loved that man