Ancestral Waters: Before the Map

Lyrics

This water had no name.
Not yet.
It just flowed.

Before the map was drawn, there were no straight lines here.
Only the trails the deer made, winding through the pines.
The air was thick with the scent of sap and damp earth after rain.
A wood thrush sang in the pre-dawn gray.
The hardwoods held the humidity, their leaves a ceiling of green.
This was a place understood by foot, by scent, by sound.

And the water remembers what the paper forgot.
Before the King's grant, before the plotted lot.
It was just the creek, a pulse in the red clay.
Carrying the seasons, washing the years away.
This was a life breathed in, a story in the bone.

A hand holds a piece of chert, finds the edge within the stone.
Patience. A perfect point for the hunt.
A dugout canoe, carved from a single log, parts the current.
Silent. A shadow moving toward the Chattahoochee.
And along the banks, in a small clearing, someone planted a tree.
A strange, sweet fruit... a soft-skinned promise.
The first peach.

And once a year, when the new corn stood high,
they brought the community to the firelight.
The Busk.
A time to forgive the old slights, to burn the old clothes.
To start again. Clean.
To taste the first harvest and thank the ground it grew from.
A renewal, under a late summer sky.

And the water remembers what the paper forgot.
Before the country club, before the plotted lot.
It was just the creek, a pulse in the red clay.
Carrying the seasons, washing the years away.
This was a life breathed in, a story in the bone.

They call it Peachtree Creek now.
They think they know why.
But the water flows on.
Under the concrete, under the noise.
It still remembers.