Concrete Communion (version 2)

Intro

Card table missing a leg, propped up by a brick

Chalk dust and dominoes, that's the liturgy we pick

Smoke rising off the grill like it's asking to be blessed

Deacon Ray deals the bones, calls it recess

Verse

I was seven when I learned the rules under that awning

Domino face down, don't speak till the round's yawning

Uncle Turk taught me silence pays better than a boast

Watch the table, read the hands, that's the only toast

Miss Pearl bring the greens in a pot wrapped in towel

Plate goes round the circle before anybody scowl

Ain't no menu, ain't no bill, just a nod when you done

Every folding chair a pew underneath the sun

Learned my numbers adding pips before the alphabet

Learned my loyalty watching who stayed when the block got wet

Rain came hard one August, table floating like a raft

Half the block ran home, the other half just laughed

Deacon Ray ain't move, said the game don't break for weather

Said the ones who stay in the storm, that's who you keep forever

I was soaked down to the bone but I stood there anyway

First time I understood what the concrete had to say

Chorus

We break bread on broken concrete

Same table, same faith, same beat

Every scar at this table gets a seat

Concrete communion, that's the truth I keep

Verse

Ten years later, table's rusted, missing another leg

Deacon Ray in a wheelchair now, still calls every peg

Nay-Nay moved to Charlotte, sends a picture every spring

Turk doing eight years upstate for a stupid little thing

Table still get set on Sunday, chairs still make a ring

But half of them are empty now, echo when we sing

I bring the folding chairs myself, unstack 'em from the shed

Grandma's apron still be hanging where Miss Pearl used to spread

New kids on the block don't know what the bones used to mean

Think it's just a game, don't know it's how we stayed clean

I try to teach it the same way Turk taught me the code

Silence pays, read the hands, walk the same old road

Sent Turk a picture of the table, said it's still standing tall

He wrote back three words on the letter: don't let it fall

I carry every empty chair like it's carrying me

Concrete don't forget who showed up for free