Ash & Inheritance

Intro

Tin box on the mantel, three generations of soot

Grandfather's kiln smoke still stuck to the roof

Some men leave letters, some men leave land

I got a jar of ashes from a dead man's hand

Verse

Grandfather burned the hillside slow, twelve days a mound

Covered it in turf and clay so the fire stayed bound

Watched it like a coffin that could wake if it breathed

One crack in the seal and the whole thing goes to grief

Lost his brother to the smoke in the winter of forty-three

Said the lungs give out slow, like a debt with no fee

Buried him in the clearing where the charcoal used to steam

Kept a tin of the ashes, called it his brother's dream

Passed it to my father when the trade moved to the mill

Furnace fed on coke now but the scars stayed still

Palms cracked like riverbeds from the heat and the tongs

Said the fire don't forgive you, it just teaches you the song

I was seven when I first held the bellows in my hand

Nine when I learned ash could turn to iron, iron to land

Now I run the forge alone, same fire, same creed

Every ember that I stoke pays a debt I didn't need

Chorus

Every fire that he lost turned to ash in his hand

Every ash that he swept built the ground where I stand

We don't bury the dead, we just burn them to plans

Ash and inheritance, that's the weight of the land

Verse

Foundry closed in eighty-nine, my father kept the flame

Built a forge out back and stamped his father's name

Sold horseshoes and hinges to the men who still rode

Said pride ain't in the money, it's in carrying the load

Watched the coal trucks stop coming, had to burn our own wood

Went back to the hillside method, did it like we should

Twelve days again, same turf, same clay, same prayer

Different century, same god waiting in the air

I qu