elizabethlevett

This ground is holy.

When you walk here remember,

this is a prosperous land, a rich soil.

This is a land where crops grow and fields of wildflowers bloom

where children play, commuters drive home to make their supper

and people go about their days and days

walking dogs, buying groceries, paying bills.

People hurry along this ground, eyes focused

on their phones or maybe

some detail of the landscape

and all the time, under the surface of this ground,

beneath the great white columns that frame the porticoes of our storied state buildings,

where the deepest-rooted oak and sycamore trees and the reddest

American Beauty roses rise and bloom in glorious profusion,

below the railroad tracks, the shopping malls, the schools and the post office

in this cold, dark soil, the substrate, lie our secrets.

These are the secrets of the ancestors

who labored here until they could no longer work,

or dance or walk.

There are ashes here and fragments of bone.

There are cowrie shells and bits of leather or cotton fabric.

Here someone buried a love letter, or a photograph,

fearing the consequences of its discovery.

Blood was spilled here, and tears were shed.

Some of these secrets we deny.

They reveal stories of those who labored

to make the soil rich and the people prosper.

These secret things we push them down and out of sight.

Below the surface our secrets wait for us.

Just as the soil turns, so turn the years.

We return to the soil too one day.

And so, when you walk here, do mind your step.

See the steam in early morning

That rises from this rich and loamy soil.

Breathe in its fragrance and walk humbly.

This ground is patient, humble, and this ground is holy.