Brackish Kin

[Chorus]
They can't see the good root in you
Can't see the saltgrass crown
Pullin' life from the brackish blue
Before they tear it all down

[Verse 1]
(Spoken)
He sees a boy on the Skidaway causeway, just after dusk. Tuesday.
T-shirt thin as a magnolia petal after a hard rain.
Knees drawn up to his chest, watchin' the container ships
slide past the port like slow, deliberate ghosts.
He's got that look. Like he's soil someone else poisoned.

[Chorus]
They can't see the good root in you
Can't see the saltgrass crown
Pullin' life from the brackish blue
Before they tear it all down

[Verse 2]
(Spoken)
This whole stretch used to be Spartina grass, tough and native.
Now it's Phragmites reeds, chokin' out the light, all hollow stem and plume.
He remembers his grandfather, hands deep in the pluff mud, sayin',
"Some things just take what ain't theirs, Solomon."
The water line on the concrete pile is a rusty accusation.

[Bridge]
So you bend like the wind-whipped pine
But your taproot holds the line
Yeah, your taproot holds the damn line

[Chorus]
They can't see the good root in you
Can't see the saltgrass crown
Pullin' life from the brackish blue
Before they tear it all down

[Outro]
(Spoken)
He doesn't stop the car.
He just keeps driving.