The Gold Dome at the Capitol

Lyrics

On Washington Street, when the afternoon light comes in low, the sun hits it differently.
Not like the hard glare off the glass towers.
Not like the grey of the concrete.
It's a soft, warm light.
A promise made of metal, held up over the city.

The cornerstone has the date carved deep: October 1, 1885.
Willoughby J. Edbrooke drew the plans, a classical revival for a city that was still clearing away its own ashes.
Governor Henry D. McDaniel watched them lay the first Indiana limestone block.
They dedicated the whole magnificent thing in June of 1889.
The Atlanta Constitution said it was a monument to the New South.
A marble heart for the state, beating right here.

Forty-three ounces of gold.
Forty-three ounces, hammered thin.
From Dahlonega, up in the hills.
Just enough to cover the dome.
A bright skin on a heavy body.
The story they wanted to tell.

You go inside, the Georgia marble is cool to the touch, even in August.
In the House of Representatives chamber, the desks are the original ones from 1889. You can trace the outlines of forgotten votes with a fingertip.
And on the fourth floor, in the Capitol Museum, past the portraits of governors, there's a calf born with two heads, preserved in a glass case.
A strange footnote in the official record.
A quiet joke about what we choose to remember, and what we choose to display.

But I read the payroll summaries from the construction.
From 1885.
They only list the names of the white supervisors.
So who quarried this marble from Pickens County?
Whose hands, unrecorded and unpaid in fair measure, set these stones?
The foundation is built on their silence.
Their names are not on the cornerstone.
Their story is not in the glass case.

Forty-three ounces of gold.
Forty-three ounces, hammered thin.
From Dahlonega, up in the hills.
Just enough to cover the dome.
A bright skin on a heavy body.
The story they needed you to see.

I think of the crew in 1958, high up on the scaffolding, regilding it.
The smell of hot tar and metal on a humid summer afternoon, drifting over the city.
No diaries survived. No letters home.
Just a single, neat line in a state maintenance log.
"Gold sourced from Dahlonega."
And the dome shines.
Over Washington Street, it just shines.