From the recording Younger with Age
I was walking in Sewanee, Tennessee near the abby of St. Mary's when I saw the historical marker designating the road there as part of the Trail of Tears, the corridor through which thousands of Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee passed when US Army troops forced their removal from their homes. It struck me that a century and a half before the term became well known during the conflicts in the Balkans, the president of the United States ordered an "ethic cleansing." I felt compelled to remember the persons who thrived in that part of our country prior to the coming of the Europeans.
Melanie Rodgers plays both the violin and the wooden flute on this track.
Lyrics
Trail of Tears
2022 - Drexel Rayford, Vagrants Chapel Music
I walked the Trail of Tears
Before the sun appeared
Across the meadow this morning.
Before the whites arrived
Another people thrived
’Till Andy Jackson came without warning.
And drove them all away
So far away
Where their spirits quailed
And their hearts were broken.
Their souls all cried
And their dreams all died
And their mem’ry’s never spoken.
I’ll walk this Trail of Tears
As the sun appears
Above a path we all have taken.
There were people here
Who have disappeared
Who were hidden and forsaken.
But they’ve not gone away
They’re not far away,
They’re our mothers and our fathers.
And we hold their pain
Which might cleanse the stain
That our broken hearts always foster.
That’s our trail of tears
Our own path of fears
That will dissipate when we just face them
The Folk who’s gone before
Are those who wait in store.
The path they’ve taken . . . is our own journey.