Voices In Tongue

VOICES IN TONGUE 
By Kuty Z

A few minutes ago, every tree was alive, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious worship. John Muir wrote of their fervor, and though to the outer ear these trees now stand silent, their songs never cease.

Modern flip-flops plop and slap down the brick streets of Cedar Key’s old town, each step stirring subtle voices. Pausing to touch a rough stone wall built by elders, I hear them there too. On the porches of weathered homes—tilting sharply, paint peeling—a cat lounges in an old cedar rocking chair, and I hear them still. But it was the sight of children’s deer hide shoes, fragile remnants of the 1852 hurricane, that made the voices louder. In the cemetery, where warm cedar plank headstones have long been replaced by cold marble, woodsmen, carvers, and fishermen rest side by side on a hill overlooking a sea of grassy wilderness. Whitman “The Shell Man” lies here too, his vast collection of artifacts—some arrowheads and spear tips dated to 20,000 years old—whispering of ancient lives. Shhhhh. Their spirits linger, mingling above clamshell coffins, speaking in native tongues through time and breeze. Following their voices, I pass through shadows guiding me deeper into Cedar Key’s history.
Brilliant white egret plumes flash along the canopy over the abandoned railroad built by Faber in 1855. The chug of his locomotive is gone, but I hear them. Images rise of Timucuan natives piling oyster, conch, mussel, and green turtle shells into a mound towering 28 feet above the mudflats—a monument 6,000 years in the making. Standing atop this palm- and cedar-crowned relic, I wonder aloud, “Why here? Why this spot, so remote, plagued by biting deer flies?” The cooling summer breeze carries my questions but offers no answers—only the laughter of children running through marsh grass, flushing scores of egret and ibis into the timeless sky. I hear them.
On the centerline of Highway 24, I bond with a swallowtail kite, and we both hear them. I long to see this landscape through the natives’ eyes. John Muir, on his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf in 1867, heard them too. “The traces of war,” he wrote, “mark not only the broken fields, mills, and slaughtered woods but the countenances of the people.” Ancestors of great cedar trees still twist in the breeze, dropping scented blue seeds to the rich earth. “Savaged,” Muir called this land—vine-tangled, watery, unfinished. 
Kayaking to Seahorse Key and its lighthouse from my condo feels civilized, but civilization seems unwelcome here. Not the hum of electricity, nor airboats, golf carts, restaurants, or tour boats belong. Remnants of history endure: giant cast-iron pots once used for salt, rusted hulls of old clam boats littering the rugged shore. I wouldn’t mourn the loss of the western pier or the “Guest House,” crumbling with each tidal shift, like the modern locals who come and go.
“Atsena Otie,” from the Muscogean “acheno ota”—Cedar Island—are the only Native American words I speak and understand. I may not return to this place of cloudy water and clams, but I’ll never forget what I heard.

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