Runestones of the Rime

Verse 1

Frost cracks the bark of the sentinel pines

I carve my name where the lichen resigns

The moon is a wound in the throat of the sky

I kneel to the rime and I ask it why

Pre-Chorus

Why the winter keeps its ledger

Why the crow repeats my name

Why the silence wants a witness

Why I came

Chorus

Ash on the altar of the frozen creek

I trade my tongue for the language of the weak

Ash on the altar where the birches weep

I trade my blood for the dream that I keep

Verse 2

The wind braids the grass into runes of complaint

I read them aloud till my lungs start to faint

The fog eats the ridge like a wolf eats its guilt

I follow the thread that the snowfall has built

Pre-Chorus

Why the valley holds its breath

Why the thaw becomes a knife

Why the horizon has no mercy

Why the life

Chorus

Ash on the altar of the frozen creek

I trade my tongue for the language of the weak

Ash on the altar where the birches weep

I trade my blood for the dream that I keep

Bridge

Cold is the pact that the root remembers

Cold is the rent that the slow light pays

Cold is the hand that unfastens the winter

Cold is the name that I cannot raise

Chorus

Ash on the altar of the frozen creek

I trade my tongue for the language of the weak

Ash on the altar where the birches weep

I trade my blood for the dream that I keep