Ravens Over the Block (version 2)

Verse

Uncle kept six ravens in a cage on the tar roof

Fed them off the scraps before he left for the night shift

Said a hungry bird flies further than a fed one

Said the block don't forgive but the sky don't judge

I climbed up after him at eleven with a coffee can

Learned to read the wind off the way their feathers stand

He carved his tally on the wire, one line a week survived

Told me count in silence, boy, the loud ones don't stay alive

Pre-Chorus

Now the coop's still standing though the coop's half rust

Every gate he welded shut still holding up my trust

He's three years gone and the birds don't know his name

But they circle every morning like the sky remembers pain

Chorus

Ravens over the block, same time, same sky

Count the ones that made it by the ones that didn't fly

Ash still warm in the barrel where he burned the old maps

Long as the birds keep circling, somebody's keeping track

Verse

Sixteen and the roof access was locked with a new chain

Cut my palm on the latch, kept the scar for the pain

Fed the ravens anyway through a hole in the fence

Told myself if they trust me then the trust ain't spent

Corner boys below me swapping product for silence

I stayed up top counting wingbeats against the violence

Nobody taught them loyalty, they just never left

Stayed through every winter that took somebody's breath

Pre-Chorus

Now the block got new faces, new plates on the door

New kids climbing gates that my uncle built before

They don't know the ledger, don't know what the wire meant

But the birds still circle round the same tar tenement

Chorus

Ravens over the block, same time, same sky

Count the ones that made it by the ones that didn't fly

Ash still warm in the barrel where he burned the old maps

Long as the birds keep circling, somebody's keeping track

Bridge

I sold the coop last spring, kept one feather in a jar

Set it on the dashboard so it travels where I are

Some men leave a fortune, some men leave a name

He left me six black witnesses that never learned to blame

I feed strangers now the way he used to feed the flock

Every scar I carry is a key to some locked block

Chorus

Ravens over the block, same time, same sky

Count the ones that made it by the ones that didn't fly

Ash still warm in the barrel where he burned the old maps

Long as the birds keep circling, somebody's keeping track