This is New England
The stone walls still run through the woods
Stacked by hands long dead
Maybe an ancestor of yours, or mine
What dreams accompanied that work?
The church steeples stretch toward the sky
Reminding us of so many prayers
Some aloud, some only in the heart
Answered or unanswered, we cannot know
But for the messages we carry, encoded in our DNA
Street names that we have forgotten the meanings of
Odds and ends in a little shop
Quaint to hang on the wall
Who used them, what stories do they tell?
Family farms struggle to survive
While so many who have worked the land before
And now rest under her quiet grace
Look on with a mixture of sadness and hope
Brick walls of buildings, standing for 200 years
Ask us to pause, and listen
If we are very still, we can hear all who came before
The lessons. You still have much to learn, they say
We spoke our piece, and acted. What now shall YOU do?
For a very few, who come in humility
Perhaps the land will tell you of the times before
When all was green, the rivers ran clean
And the people who lived here were one with the land
Before the endless betrayals
In the libraries, the keepers of the books
Work to hold and honor the sacred history
We must know it to learn from it
Layer upon layer, endless stories
They are everywhere, if you care to listen
Silence yourself, and open your spirit
This place is old, and while bodies may die
The stories, they never die
What do they have to tell you?
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