It looks at first like standard musical notation but is in fact a geometric one, made of notes in the shapes of triangles, ovals, rectangles and diamonds. Then they sing the lyrics, many of them religious poems written in the eighteenth century. To guard my head by night or noon. The heat in the church rises. The windows are swollen or painted shut, and faces gleam with sweat.
Music pours out the front doors of the church, and people wander in, listen, then wander out.
As noon approaches, the assembled community sings memorials for those who are missing - the dead and departed, the sick and the simply absent. Then it celebrates itself in a board-groaning potluck spread of chicken dishes, potato salad, lemonade, cheeses, cakes and breads. This is tradition, harking back to colonial days, when shape-note singing first took root in this country. After the meal, the singing resumes. One by one the singers again step into the center of the square.