Prairie Dog Anthem

Dust on my nose

Sun in my eyes

Whole lotta sky

For a body this size

Wake up to the hawk cry

Heart thump like a war drum

Little king of a dirt town

Teeth sharp, nerves numb

Tunnel vision, yeah literally

Whole world in a hallway

Every step on the surface

Could be my last day

Cousins posted like lookouts

Whistle code on the hill

When that shadow comes crawling

We freeze, then we spill

This is that prairie dog anthem

Tiny heart, big wide canyon

From the burrow to the badlands, stand up

I was born in the bite of the wind

Claws in the clay, I dig in

Small body with a hard rock chin

Prairie dog

Prairie dog

Prairie dog anthem

You see brown fur, I see battle scars

You see flat land, I see shooting stars

When the night drops, owls start circling

I can feel fear in the ground start trembling

Whole squad popping up, then duck low

Living on the edge of the teeth of a coyote’s shadow

But I still crack jokes on the mound like, “Pull up”

Tail flick, dirt kick, never back up

From the tractor roar to the thunder roll

Every rumble writes a warning in my bones

You got nine-to-five

I got dawn-to-dusk

You clock in, clock out

I trust claws and dust

If the storm comes fast I adapt and I vanish

In the maze that I made out of grit and damage

Started with a scrape and a bite and a scratch

Now the underground town got a whole new patch

Can’t cage this plain

Can’t cage this pain

Can’t cage this chain

We chew right through that thing