Gardener's Calloused Hands

Lyrics

These hands knew the trowel.
Knew the heft of a watering can in July.
Knew the sharp bite of a rose thorn.
But in nineteen sixty-two, they learned the weight of a pen.

My garden was my own.
The tomatoes staked just so, the bee balm humming.
Then the sound came, over the stone wall.
A whine of saws from the direction of Fairhaven Hill.
A new kind of dust on the zinnias, churned up by the bulldozers
creeping out from Route 20.
The world was getting smaller.
The wild edges were fraying.

So these hands, calloused from the soil,
learned to unfold a map in the town hall basement.
These hands learned to draw a line in ink, a promise.
We gave our pledge a name: The Conservation Commission.
This land is not for the taking.
This water will run clean.
Our hands, together, tending a bigger garden now.

There were nights with bad coffee and arguments.
Spreading the zoning maps across folding tables.
Whose property line? What right of way?
But we all saw the same thing.
The slow disappearance of the cardinal flower by the riverbank.
The silence where the peepers used to scream in spring.
We weren't planting seeds in the ground anymore.
We were planting them in the law.

And these hands, calloused from the soil,
unfolded a map in the town hall basement.
These hands drew a line in ink, a promise.
We gave our pledge a name: The Conservation Commission.
This land is not for the taking.
This water will run clean.
Our hands, together, tending a bigger garden now.

I look at my own hands sometimes.
Still dirt under the nails, but there’s a smudge of ink on the thumb.
A permanent stain.
A signature on a land trust document.
A promise made to you, Sudbury River.
To you, Great Meadows.
A promise that someone else's grandchildren
will know your breath.

The work is never done.
The hoe leans by the back door.
The pen rests on the desk.
Both are ready.
These hands are ready.