Wolf Winter Testimony (Version 2)

Intro

Snow packed the fence line, blue in the moon's low light

Grandfather's lantern swinging, watching the wolf tracks write

Their story in the frost before the sun could erase

He said some winters test you, some winters test the place

Verse

Nineteen and forty-one, the flock down to eleven

He counted lambs by lantern like counting sins to heaven

Wolves came close enough to fog the porch glass with breath

He stood there with a rifle he never wanted to test

Said the weak one goes first, that's the math of the cold

Gave the sickest lamb up so the rest wouldn't fold

Ribs showed through the wool like slats in a broken gate

He buried that lamb himself, called the loss a down payment on fate

Three nights straight he watched, ice forming on his lashes

Barn roof creaking like it carried all his family's ashes

By spring the pack moved on, the fence line still stood true

He said surviving ain't the shot, it's what the shot cost you

Told my mother, she told me, sitting by the stove

Said a wolf winter comes for every house, every road

Question ain't if it's coming, it's what you're willing to give

He gave a lamb to the frost so the rest of us could live

Chorus

Wolf winter don't ask, it just circles the door

Teaches you what you kept and what you gave for

I carry that frost like a coat I can't shed

Every howl in the dark was a lesson I bled

Verse

Two thousand and nine, my own kind of blizzard came

Landlord's letter frozen to the door with my last name

Fridge running empty, radiator coughing steam

Little brother asking why the milk tastes like a dream

I did what the old man did, gave up my share first

Told him I ate at work, let the lie feed his thirst

Sold my one good coat for groceries and a bus pass

Walked through February wearing anger like glass

Wolves in my winter wore suits, carried clipboards not claws

Circled the porch of my mother's house looking for flaws

I stood watch like he stood watch, same lantern, different light

Learned the cold don't care whose blood you bled that night

By March we still had the lease, still had four walls whole

Didn't win the winter, just outlasted its toll

Now when it snows I hear that gate creak in my chest

Understand now why he called surviving a kind of rest

Chorus

Wolf winter don't ask, it just circles the door

Teaches you what you kept and what you gave for

I carry that frost like a coat I can't shed

Every howl in the dark was a lesson I bled

Bridge

My daughter asked me why I keep a lantern by the bed

I told her every family's got a winter that ain't dead

It waits inside the walls, it waits inside the name

Waits to see if what we built can carry through the same

I said one day it's yours to stand watch through the night

Not to win against the wolves, just to keep the fence line tight

Outro

Snow's falling soft tonight, no tracks along the door

That don't mean the winter's gone, just means it's kept the score

I keep the lantern lit, I keep the story warm