Intro
Oar handle under the floorboard where the joints don't meet
Great-grandfather's tally still living in the wood
Some men keep a diary, some men keep a will
I keep a ledger carved by a hand cracked and hard
Verse
Forty men to a hull, one bench, one oar, one pull
Salt cracked his palms like glass dropped on a stool
Captain kept the count but the crew kept the cost
Every storm took a name, every name got embossed
Notch for the brother the tide swallowed whole
Notch for the winter that hollowed his soul
No church on the water, no bell and no priest
Just the wood underneath and the truth that it keeps
He carved by the moonlight, blade steady and slow
Said the sea forgets fast but the timber won't let go
Fourteen crossings, fourteen years just the same
Half the crew that started never carried a name
Came home with the ledger tucked under his coat
Said the gold's in surviving, not the gold that you tote
Passed it to my father like a torch through the fog
Told him read every mark before you learn how to row
Chorus
Carve it in the oar, one line for the ones we lost
Blood in the wood, still float, no matter the cost
I don't need a name, just a mark on the beam
The longship remembers what the water can't clean
Verse
Now I keep my own ledger, but it's kept in my ribs
Every setback's a notch, every hustle's a rib
City's got its own current and it don't forgive
Rent's the storm and the interest is how casualties live
I don't row with an oar, I row with a pen
Sign my name on the paper, hope the ink don't offend
Landlord counts my hours like the captain counts men
I count what I'm building, not just where I've been
Scar
