Water Grass Place
Complete Script
text by Michael Bell
based on local voices from
the Water Grass Place
Movement I: Water-Grass-Place
Sources
Water Grass Place, I wish I were near you
Wish I were in your fond embrace
Forever
Water Grass Place, I wish I could hear you
Wish I could see your sweet face
On a paw of land out thrust in a curve [August Derleth, Walden West]
Where the Wisconsin takes a swerve
Majestically between scarped banks [Father Adalbert Inama, 1845]
“Eureka, eureka, Italia!” [Agoston Haraszthy’s first words on seeing
A water-grass sinfonia the WI River valley at Sauk Prairie, 1840]
For these natures I give my deepest thanks, oh
chorus
Above on the hill Black Hawk wept for his band [August Derleth, I Address You Eleanor, III]
There I was one with the least grain of sand [August Derleth, Return to Walden West]
The invisible anima of the vast [August Derleth, Return to Walden West]
There is melody in your landscape alone [August Derleth, I Address You Eleanor, IV]
Clue to the fire fixed in all my bones [August Derleth, I Address You Eleanor, I]
So let us not part the present from the past, oh [August Derleth, I Address You, Eleanor VI]
chorus
As happy as buffalo on the plains [Black Hawk, describing life for native people]
Grazing free of reins and chains
Your people feed on possibility
No dogmas or degrees fixed for all time [Eduard Schroeter, from the Free Thinkers’
No twisted logics locked in rhyme Fundamental Principles, 1851]
Your grass grows just as it will, oh
chorus
Interlude I
Let us honor the water, the water, the many waters that made us and yet sustain us. The
full choir
great waters of the great oceans, the Panthallasic Ocean and an even older ocean with no
name, that once lapped across our home, our home, and laid down the sands that in time
altos and sopranos
cemented into the bed, the bedrock, upon which our lives now rest. The water of the
great glacier, the Wisconsin Glacier, that scuffed and gruffed and buffed the bedrock into
our hills and valleys, our hills and valleys, and left behind a gentle, drifting blanket of
tenors and basses
sands and soils. The water of the great river, the Wisconsin River, and the vein-work of
streams flooding into it, coursing through our days, our nights, and all our seasons of
being.
Movement II: Water
[No words]
Interlude II
Let us honor the grass, the grass, the grasses that live on what the waters left behind, and on what
full choir
the waters continue to give. The grasses of the great prairie, the tall grass prairie, with its big
tenors and altos
blue stem, side-oats grama, June grass, and Indian grass. Their cousin forbs, bergamot, lead-
plant, and geranium; kitten tails, pussy toes, and lion’s foot; shooting star, golden rod, and lily.
Their sheltering shrubs, plum, cherry, and hazelnut; dogwood, blackhaw, and willow. And their
savanna oaks, white, black, red, bur, pin, and chinkapin. The grasses of the great pastures and
croplands, great pastures and croplands, the brome, orchard grass, and switch grass; the corn,
basses and sopranos
oats, and rye; their intermingling legumes, alfalfa, soy, and clover. The creatures and peoples
who have found their livelihoods from this grassy abundance, grassy abundance, the deer,
full choir
buffalo, and fox; the vireo, towhee, and bobolink; the snake, frog, and fly; the native folk and
farm folk. And more, so much more, ever more.
Movement III: Grass
[chant]
Interlude III
Let us honor the place, the place, the places that live on what both the waters and the grasses left
full choir
behind, and on what they continue to give. The roads, Clavadatscher, Stone’s Pocket, Happy
Hill, Happy Hill; Irish Valley, Swiss Valley, Skunk Valley; Unke, Gastrow, Inama; Merrimac
basses and tenors
Ferry; the Wisconsin and Southern. The parks, Pine Hollow, Natural Bridge, Devil’s Lake,
Parfrey’s Glen, Derleth, Ferry Bluff, Lodde’s Mill Bluff, and the Riverway. The schools, Tower
Rock, Spruce Street, Grand Avenue, Black Hawk, Merrimac, St. Aloysius, Sauk Prairie High,
Sauk Prairie High. The places of gathering, for commerce, for work, for worship, for
altos and sopranos
merry-making and conviviality, conviviality. The ghosts of the place, the buildings gone, the
basses and tenors
bridges gone, the boats gone, the businesses gone, the farms gone, the villages gone, the people
gone, all of which, and of whom, are alive with us still, with us still, in our minds, and in our
altos and sopranos
hopes and loves.
Movement IV: Place
[No words]
Interlude IV
Let us honor it all together, the waters, the grasses, the places, the ensemble that makes this the
Water Grass Place, Water Grass Place. We honor it who are so privileged, privileged to be
full choir
living with and, each in our own ways, adding to such beauty, such beauty, of light and sound;
altos and sopranos
space and time; nature and history; creativity and humanity; community and fraternity; water,
grass, and place. We honor it now, honor it now, because we can forget. We can neglect. We
basses and tenors
can regret. As a wise woman of Water Grass Place once wrote, “Life passes swiftly enough.
No need to push it…. Savor the time. Relax. Enjoy the moment. What’s the hurry?”[1] So today
we slow. Today we listen. Today we watch. Today we sing.
full choir
Movement V: Water Grass Place (reprise)
Water Grass Place, I wish I were near you
Wish I were in your fond embrace
Forever
Water Grass Place, I wish I could hear you
Wish I could see your sweet face
Honey Creek, Sumpter, Merrimac
Sauk Prairie, Sauk City, Prairie du Sac
Roxbury and West Point
I love this land, tell you I do for true
I know your land like the back of my hand
I know every wrinkle, pore, and gland
Every knuckle, sinew, and joint, oh
I’m coming now home to you
chorus
Ever we bind our hearts in the love of place
Unity, community, locality
Never we blind ourselves to how we interlace
Fidelity to history’s prosperity
Ever entwined are the lines that our lives trace
Serenity, stability, society
Never unmindful are we of this living grace
Sanctity of charity’s vitality
Put a bottle of whiskey in the wrong car [from a “want ad” in the Sauk Prairie Star on March
So I put an ad in the Sauk Prairie Star 27th, 1958: “Lost; a fifth of 10-High whiskey—May
Small town life—got it back the next day have put it someone else’s car. Call 321M.”]
For real I swear that it’s true, I do
These are the things you never forget
The care of neighbors dry or wet
Community that sticks like clay, oh
For real my love for you
chorus
bridge
Water Grass Place, now I am near you
Now I am in your fond embrace
Forever
Water Grass Place, now I can hear you
Now I can kiss your sweet face
Forever, forever, forever, forever!
6
[1] Lola O’Brien Huber (2000), Folks n’ Folklore, Prairie du Sac, WI: Giergerich’s Sons Inc, p. 13.