Decatur 1864: The Red Clay Remembers

Lyrics

[Intro]
Before the names, I was the heat.
July, baking me hard.
I remember the weight of the air, thick with pine and waiting.

[Verse 1]
Then came the boots. Sprague's men.
Ohio boys, their faces pale under the Georgia sun.
They cut my pines, dug into my skin.
The smell of me rose up, that sharp iron scent of turned clay.
They piled cotton bales near the courthouse square.
A soft wall for a hard business.
I felt their fear through the soles of their shoes.
A low, steady trembling.

[Chorus]
And I remember the twenty-second day.
Eighteen sixty-four.
I drank the sweat, I took the lead.
I held the blood and made no judgment.
Wheeler's charge, Sprague's defense.
They were just weight and heat and noise to me.
I am the clay. The red memory.
And I hold them still.

[Verse 2]
The thunder wasn't in the sky.
It was horses, hundreds of them, churning me to dust.
Wheeler's cavalry against the Georgia Railroad line.
My oaks shivered, scarred by shot.
Men fell by the supply wagons, their last breath a warm cloud against my face.
I felt the groan of the wagon wheels, the splintering wood.
The shouts echoed off the walls of the Swanton House.

[Chorus]
And I remember the twenty-second day.
Eighteen sixty-four.
I drank the sweat, I took the lead.
I held the blood and made no judgment.
Wheeler's charge, Sprague's defense.
They were just weight and heat and noise to me.
I am the clay. The red memory.
And I hold them still.

[Bridge]
Then the rain came.
A quiet washing.
A single drop fell on the ridge by the square.
Part of it ran north to the Chattahoochee, on to the Atlantic.
The other, south to the Ocmulgee, down to the Gulf.
I sent their story in two directions.
I carried them home on the water.

[Outro]
The tracks still hum with a ghost-weight.
The pines have sealed their wounds with sap.
I am still here, under the pavement, under the roots.
I remember the heat.
I remember the names they've forgotten.
I remember.