Bones Beneath the Border — A Song Inspired by Lummi Nation wins a preliminary court injunction over disturbed ancestral burial sites in Point Roberts

[Verse 1]
They drove the stakes where the blackberries lean
Over cedar shade and a salt-wind screen
A bright white line on a county map
Cut through names that do not answer back

[Pre-Chorus]
Then a hand went up in the courtroom air
And the engines waited at the edge of prayer

[Chorus]
Hold the blade, hold the wheel
There are bones beneath the border still
Every shovel, every stone
Knows the old ones are not gone
Hold the line, hold the hill
There are bones beneath the border still

[Verse 2]
Point Roberts watched with its ferry-light eyes
While the papers argued what the ground could hide
But the dirt remembers what the ink forgets
Every footstep keeps a debt

[Pre-Chorus]
So the dust lay down and the chain went slack
For the voices calling from under the track

[Chorus]
Hold the blade, hold the wheel
There are bones beneath the border still
Every shovel, every stone
Knows the old ones are not gone
Hold the line, hold the hill
There are bones beneath the border still

[Bridge]
Not for sale and not erased
Not a silence, not a vacant place
When the living stand where the dead have lain
The law must learn the weight of names

[Fiddle Break]

[Final Chorus]
Hold the blade, hold the wheel
There are bones beneath the border still
Every shovel, every stone
Knows the old ones are not gone
Hold the line, hold the hill
Till the hungry iron kneels
Hold the blade, hold the wheel
There are bones beneath the border still