Ledger of the Longship (Version 2)

Intro

Oar handle under the floorboard where the joints don't meet

Great-grandfather's tally still living in the wood

Some men keep a diary, some men keep a will

I keep a ledger carved by a hand cracked and hard

Verse

Forty men to a hull, one bench, one oar, one pull

Salt cracked his palms like glass dropped on a stool

Captain kept the count but the crew kept the cost

Every storm took a name, every name got embossed

Notch for the brother the tide swallowed whole

Notch for the winter that hollowed his soul

No church on the water, no bell and no priest

Just the wood underneath and the truth that it keeps

He carved by the moonlight, blade steady and slow

Said the sea forgets fast but the timber won't let go

Fourteen crossings, fourteen years just the same

Half the crew that started never carried a name

Came home with the ledger tucked under his coat

Said the gold's in surviving, not the gold that you tote

Passed it to my father like a torch through the fog

Told him read every mark before you learn how to row

Chorus

Carve it in the oar, one line for the ones we lost

Blood in the wood, still float, no matter the cost

I don't need a name, just a mark on the beam

The longship remembers what the water can't clean

Verse

Now I keep my own ledger, but it's kept in my ribs

Every setback's a notch, every hustle's a rib

City's got its own current and it don't forgive

Rent's the storm and the interest is how casualties live

I don't row with an oar, I row with a pen

Sign my name on the paper, hope the ink don't offend

Landlord counts my hours like the captain counts men

I count what I'm building, not just where I've been

Scar