Stone Mountain Granite

Lyrics

[Intro]
Stone Mountain, you old gray dome,
rising from the Piedmont clay.
1,686 feet of quartz monzonite,
exposed since the Carboniferous age.

[Verse 1]
I touch your flank, cool under July sun,
where Gutzon Borglum first dreamed in 1915,
commissioned by the Daughters,
to etch heroes into your skin.
Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson,
on horseback, 76 feet tall, 158 wide.
But Gutzon left in '25, conflicts boiling,
like the thermit torch that would later smooth you.

[Chorus]
Granite, you endure,
sacred to the Cherokee as Yenacanoochah,
beneath the carvings, your heart unchanged.
Laser lights dance on summer evenings since 1983,
red and green beams tracing old wounds,
while families picnic on Memorial Lawn,
eating foil-wrapped hot dogs, popcorn scents mixing with pine sap.

[Verse 2]
Walker Hancock took the reins in '64,
finished by '72, his hands guiding the flame.
Born in St. Louis, died at 97,
he said history looked over his shoulder.
Now hikers climb the Walk-Up Trail each dawn,
dew-slick stone underfoot, red-tailed hawks calling.
At dusk, the Summit Skyride hums,
glass gondolas lifting eyes to Atlanta's distant glow.

[Bridge]
Oh granite, you tremble not like Okefenokee's earth,
but hold the weight of thirteen thousand names from Andersonville,
echoes of New Echota's tears.
Controversial scars, yet you stand,
state park wrapping you in recreation,
feral horses on Cumberland dunes a world away,
but your endurance ties the land.

[Verse 3]
In Confederate Hall, exhibits whisper your geology,
300 million years pressed into dome.
Devil's Crossroads cave sealed since '23,
a strange fact buried in worker logs.
I lean close, smell the metallic dust,
feel the heat radiating over 100 degrees.

[Outro]
Stone Mountain, my enduring one,
you bridge the trails from Springer to Katahdin,
cultural pillars rising like your summit.
In this ode, I sing your layers,
intimate as a lover's breath on granite skin.