Winter Toll, Paid in Full

Intro

Frost cracked the window like a knuckle on glass,

Grandpa's ledger says the winter never asks—

Just takes, chisel deep where the river runs slow,

Every legend on this block was quarried out the snow.

Verse

Eighteen-eighty-nine he told it, cordwood stacked in threes,

Sawed the river solid, hauled it home on frozen knees.

Ice house walls packed thick with sawdust and with straw,

Kept the blocks from melting till July came with its jaw.

Tongs bit steel into his palms like teeth into a peach,

Every callus was a coin he couldn't spend or teach.

Sold the ice for pennies when the coal money ran dry,

Told my grandma debt don't drown you if you learn to swim it right.

Lost two fingers to the blade the winter forty-one,

Kept on cutting anyway before the thaw was done.

Said the river gives you nothing that you didn't bleed to earn,

Every block he stacked was a lesson he'd return.

By spring the ledger balanced, red ink turned to black,

He'd stand there at the loading dock and never look back.

Said the cold don't care who's righteous, only who's still standing,

That's the only interest that this kind of debt's demanding.

Chorus

Winter toll, paid in full,

Every scar's a receipt that the frost couldn't pull.

We don't melt, we just harden where the hunger used to be,

Winter toll, paid in full — that's the only legacy.

Verse

Now I'm loading pallets in a freezer, thirty below,

Forklift horn my only hymn, breath like ghost in tow.

Steel-toe bo