Buckhead Soil: A Deep History

Lyrics

Beneath the boxwood hedge.
Beneath the poured concrete of 1923.
I'm talking to you.
The ground itself.

Before the survey lines were cut,
before the name Smith or Jones was spoken here,
you were here.
You felt the first axe bite into pine.
The shadow of the great oak, gone.
The iron stake driven into your quiet, a sharp, cold shock.
You held it. You hold it still.

Oh, Buckhead soil, red memory.
You don't measure time in deeds and titles.
You measure it in leaf-fall, in root-reach, in the slow crush of granite.
You keep the unwritten record.

The trail was here before the road.
Not a road for wheels, but for feet.
A soft-worn path, following the ridge.
You remember the scent of their passing,
the weight of moccasins, the silence between footfalls.
No names carved in your memory, just the pressure.
Just the long, slow journey toward the Chattahoochee.

Oh, Buckhead soil, red memory.
You don't measure time in deeds and titles.
You measure it in leaf-fall, in root-reach, in the slow crush of granite.
You keep the unwritten record.

And deeper still.
Deeper than the Cherokee removal.
Deeper than the first human breath.
The age of iron rusting in your veins, giving you color.
The great, slow grinding of the Piedmont plate.
The bedrock sleeping under all this weight.
The weight of a house, the weight of a century... it's nothing to you.
A brief pressure. A passing shadow.

And the rain falls tonight.
On the manicured lawn.
On 21 Cherokee Road.
And you drink it in.
You remember everything.
You wait.