Runes Buried in the Ledger (Version 2)

Intro

Kitchen table lit by one bulb, brown paper spread

Grandma's hand moved quick, wrote in symbols instead

Cops circled the block but they never cracked her code

Verse

She ran the numbers out the back room past the church

Wrote our hope in triangles, kept the columns clean

Three-digit dreams, a nickel bet could feed a week

Fed the deacon's rent when the offering ran weak

Every square meant somebody's Sunday shoes got paid

Every slash meant somebody's light bill got delayed

She kept the runes in a cigar box under the sink

Taught herself the shorthand faster than she could think

Cops came sniffing, she swallowed slips like aspirin

Said the law don't feed us, the numbers always listen

Widow on the corner drew a seven and eleven

Grandma paid it out in cash, called it a piece of heaven

She wasn't a criminal, she was the only bank we had

No teller wanted us, she wrote the good and bad

Thirty years of symbols, not one column ever bent

Buried in that ledger was the only covenant

Chorus

Runes buried in the ledger, kept the whole block alive

Every mark meant a promise that we'd somehow survive

Cops could seize the paper but the code stayed in her mind

Runes buried in the ledger, that's the truth we left behind

Verse

Now I keep my own book, different kind of code

Sixteen bars a page, still counting what I'm owed

Label tried to shortchange, said the contract read it clean

I read between the runes like grandma read the seams

Every hook's a policy, every verse a numbers run

Pay the streets in truth before the check ever come

Studio at midnight, cigar box turned hard drive

Still writing in a language that the vult