The Geechee Tongue

Lyrics

[Intro]

Sapelo, you old whisperer,
ferry cutting Doboy Sound at 7:30 AM,
Meridian Dock fading like yesterday's tide.

[Verse 1]
Cornelia Walker Bailey, 1945 to 2017,
your voice in Hog Hammock,
addressing the sweetgrass basket in my hands,
woven tight as family secrets.
You said, we are the keepers,
if we don't tell, who will?
Blue paint on the doorframe,
warding haints from Behavior Cemetery,
shells on graves, 1995 summer heat at 85 degrees.

[Chorus]
Geechee tongue, you roll like low tide mud,
briny with Spartina decay,
speaking West Africa in Georgia salt.
Hoppin' John on the stove,
black-eyed peas and rice steaming,
addressing you, old language,
carry me across the marsh.

[Verse 2]
Richard J. Reynolds Jr., 1906 to 1964,
tobacco money buying the island in 1940,
shifting Hog Hammock like sand underfoot.
But the oyster beds hold,
knife in hand at 4 PM,
shucking in the receding water,
cast nets thrown wide over tidal creeks.
Cornelia, your stories at the cookout,
smoky palmetto leaves burning,
mingling with fried fish and marsh tang.

[Bridge]

Missing names from Spalding Plantation,
enslaved shadows in shell middens,
cabin foundations whispering back.
Geechee, you fill the gaps,
intimate as dawn light on the ferry deck,
vibrating engine, cool breeze off the sound.

[Verse 3]
Sapelo Voices, 2000,
University of Georgia catching your rhythm,
Cornelia, orphaned echoes in the oral tide.
Handwoven basket, you hold the oysters,
the rice, the blue-paint protection.
Community of thirty souls,
dirt roads and wooden homes,
last enclave breathing.

[Outro]

Geechee tongue, don't fade with the ferry's wake,
speak through me,
keepers of the marsh forever.