Oakland Cemetery's Edge: Where History Sleeps

Lyrics

[Intro]
There's a wall at the end of the street.
Not brick, but iron.
A spine of cold iron, holding back the quiet.

[Verse 1]
Beyond the rust-flaked pickets, the ground breathes slow.
Eighteen fifty slow.
Under oaks that have forgotten more than we will ever know.
The air is cool here, smells of damp earth and ivy.
Before the lofts, you could hear the looms from here.
A steady, frantic heartbeat just over your shoulder.
Now, only the MARTA train sighs in the distance.

[Chorus]
Oh, Oakland, you silent neighbor.
You keep the mayors and the writers, the famous and the fallen.
But I press my ear to your fence and listen for the others.
The names washed from simple wood markers.
The ghosts of Cabbagetown, sleeping in unmarked rows.

[Verse 2]
I walk the line where Berean Avenue ends.
Past the grand mausoleums, the angels with worn-out faces.
Margaret Mitchell is in here, with her epic words.
Bobby Jones, with his perfect swing.
But where are the weavers, the spinners, the doffers?
The ones who lived and died in the shotgun shacks,
who smelled of cotton dust and boiled cabbage.
Did they find a quiet piece of your red clay?

[Chorus]
Oh, Oakland, you silent neighbor.
You keep the mayors and the writers, the famous and the fallen.
But I press my ear to your fence and listen for the others.
The names washed from simple wood markers.
The ghosts of Cabbagetown, sleeping in unmarked rows.

[Bridge]
I remember March, two thousand and eight.
The sky went green and the air smelled of ozone and snapped pine.
A freight train screamed over the rooftops.
And I wonder if you felt it, too.
If the ground trembled under the granite and marble.
A new, violent story whispered to the old, still ones.

[Outro]
The sun goes down behind the city skyline.
Lights flicker on in the mill windows.
I take my hand from the cold iron fence.
Goodnight, you keepers of the quiet.