Kirkwood: Seeds of Renewal

Lyrics

[Intro]
I remember the quiet, Kirkwood.
The long, buzzing hum of cicadas in the empty lots.
A stillness where a house used to be.
Holding its breath through the seventies, the eighties, the nineties.

[Verse 1]
Your Foursquare houses stood watch, shoulders slumped.
Porch swings hanging by a single rusted chain.
White paint peeling like a bad sunburn in July.
Waiting.
Weeds pushed up through the sidewalk cracks,
telling a patient, stubborn story of their own.

[Chorus]
But we came with seeds of renewal in our pockets.
With borrowed ladders and hands in the red clay.
We found the good heartwood under the rot.
And we whispered your name back to life, day by day.

[Verse 2]
Then a new sound.
A hammer's steady rhythm down the block.
The sharp, sweet smell of sawdust on the air.
Bessie Branham Park started breathing again, a slow, green lung.
And the first new light flickered on in the Village,
a promise made against the dark.

[Chorus]
And we came with seeds of renewal in our pockets.
With borrowed ladders and hands in the red clay.
We found the good heartwood under the rot.
And we whispered your name back to life, day by day.

[Bridge]
They gave you a name you never asked for.
A shadow word whispered on the other side of town.
But the ones who stayed, they knew your bones.
They held the line through the long, lean years.
They just waited for the turning.
Waited for the hands.

[Outro]
Now the jasmine climbs a new-built fence.
The sound of children's voices on the evening air.
You're breathing, Kirkwood.
You're breathing.
Yeah, you're breathing now.