[Intro]
[Instrumental: frame drum and dulcimer circle an open fifth; cello answers from below.]

No flag disturbed the morning air,
Yet law and language gathered there.
The river carried news and grain;
The path held footprints after rain.

[Verse 1]
[Female mezzo]

Before the survey cut the plain,
Councils met through frost and rain.
Hands shaped clay and cedar beams,
Children learned the turns of streams.
Markets moved from shore to shore,
Stories kept the count of war.
No vacant earth, no voiceless wood—
A thousand duties understood.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Baritone]

You saw no steeple, court or gate,
Then named the living landscape bare.
But absence lived inside your sight,
Not in the towns beyond your light.

[Chorus]
[Both]

Before the flag, the nations stood
By river bend and cottonwood.
No blank page waited for your hand,
No empty continent, no vacant land.
Before your seals and occupations,
The earth held law—before the flag, the nations.

[Verse 2]
[Baritone]

The winter stores were measured well,
The summer routes had tales to tell.
Some nations traded, some made peace,
Some fought where old disputes increased.
No single people, simple past,
No painted world forever cast.
Distinct in custom, word and claim,
Not one broad costume, one false name.

[Chorus]

[Both]
Before the flag, the nations stood
By canyon wall and coastal wood.
No blank page waited for your hand,
No empty continent, no vacant land.
Before your forts and proclamations,
The earth held law—before the flag, the nations.

[Interlude]
[Instrumental: hammered dulcimer repeats the album motif; cello bends the final note downward.]

[Bridge]
[Call and Response]

[Baritone]
We called the meadow wilderness.
[Female mezzo]
You called it home and nothing less.
[Baritone]
We drew a border through the grain.
[Female mezzo]
You named the river, hill and rain.
[Baritone]
We claimed discovery from the deck.
[Female mezzo]
You watched the foreign canvas wreck.

[Break]
[Unison]

Not vanished.
Not one.
Not waiting
To be begun.

[Final Chorus]
[Ensemble]

Before the flag, the nations stood,
With laws of water, fire and wood.
No blank page waited for your hand,
No empty continent, no vacant land.
The first denied declaration:
The earth held law before your nation.

[Coda]
[Ensemble]

The flag arrived; the truth remains—
The land remembers older names.

[Outro]
[Both]

Before the flag,
Before the claim,
The nations lived.
The nations remain.
