Sharon's Song

This summer’s harvest yields
more than corn and soybean,
crops that nourish and sustain.
Planting and reaping finished,
time now for the wetlands’
resurrection, the second coming
of a million trees. We must
allow the land to heal.

Rows of turkey houses gone.
Boer goats no longer browse
the coastal Bermuda fields.
Deep in the woods, headstones
ringed with red cedars recall
a family from long ago.
Listen, and you may hear
children’s laughter lingering,

or hoof-beats of weary horses.
Markings on a beech tree record
Indian trading. Unseen, a steam
engine sinks silently into the earth.
The wind sings grace notes
through two pines that abide
side by side. Listen.
The land whispers back.

Harrison Creek again flows
serpentine and slow into the Cape Fear.
The bald cypress walk
on their knees, but do not leave.
Muskrat and marsh hawks return.
Orchard orioles, buntings,
and sand cranes come
back to the longleaf pine.

Cries of geese fill the air.
A hawk circles, the needle of
his gaze finding prey. The scent
of bear hovers everywhere.
White-tailed deer, bobcat,
and east coast panther roam
the woods. We have taken.
Now we give.

This land holds our history,
the mystery of what we know
and cannot know. One hundred
thousand years ago, meteors
struck the Mother County,
creating oval lakes, all with
a single orientation. Follow
the wild iris to a Carolina Bay.

Old ghosts thrive here, at home
with the wild things, the thought-
less seasons. When you hold
a palm full of Croatan muck,
you may feel another hand
brush your fingers closed.
The rich soil a reminder:
The land remains. Changed now

as we are changed, but forever
connected by time and breath.
From this fragment of life
A new future rises.
Sunlight falls through pines
as if through cathedral windows,
yields to darkness
and returns.

This poem was written for the Resurrection of the Wetlands and Birth of the NC Farm Center for Innovation and Sustainability / August 8, 2008 In honor of Sharon Valentine and in memory of Steve Quinn, whose vision brought together state and federal government, nonprofit agencies, and private landowners in a unique partnership that honors the land.