Iron Oath (version 2)

Intro

Bellows breathe like a lung that won't quit

Forge light flickers where the oath still sits

Verse

Granddaddy's forge was a chapel with a smoke stack steeple

He hammered chains for men he still called his people

But every third link, he'd hairline it thin

Called it a flaw, never called it a sin

Overseer heard the ring, never heard the swing

Never knew freedom was hid in the ring

Coal dust settled black in the lines of his palm

He'd whisper the oath like a hymn, like a psalm

Strike true, strike slow, let the fire decide

Quench barrel hissing like the river he denied

Branding iron cooling right next to the tongs

He kept his whole count in a language of songs

Thirty years bent over that same anvil block

Never broke, never spoke, let the hammer talk

When the war came and the chains turned to plow

He melted the guilt into something to sow

Chorus

We forge or we fold, that's the iron oath

Quench it in the dark, watch it turn to gold

Hammer take the doubt, anvil take the load

That's the iron oath, that's the iron oath

Verse

Now I'm the one in the shop past the light in the lot

Sparks landing on denim, leaving stars where they're not

Same oath, different metal, I weld what I can

Turn busted rebar to a gate for a man

Who just came home from a cage with his name still intact

I don't ask what he did, I just handle the tact

Forge don't judge, forge just tests what's inside

You either temper right or you crack when you're tried

I keep a notebook, page torn from the old one he kept

Every gate that I've built is a deb