Runes in the Rafters (Version 4)

Verse

Chalk line snapped blue before the sun came up

Grandfather's plane still shaves the same rough cut

He taught me joints don't lie, the wood remembers weight

Every peg we drove was a promise, not a debt

Six houses burned on Miller Road one bitter year

Only one still standing when the smoke cleared

The one he'd marked with circles cut in oak and rust

Rust like sweat that dried to something close to trust

I was ten with a chisel, hands too small to grip

Watched him carve a wheel above the ridge and never slip

Said a rafter's just a promise turned to timber and to time

Every notch remembers what the fire left behind

Pre-Chorus

So what do you carve when the world keeps trying to take

What do you mark when your hands are all you got to stake

I asked him once if the symbols really work

He said the work's the symbol, that's the truth beneath the dirt

Chorus

Runes in the rafters, hidden where the roofline bends

Every house still standing got a mark that never ends

Not magic, just a memory some hand refused to lose

Runes in the rafters, that's the debt the timber pays in truth

Verse

Now I'm forty with a level and a crew of six

Teach the young ones joints before I teach the rest of it

Rebuilt the Delancy barn after the flood took the frame

Found grandfather's mark still dry beneath the water stain

That's when I learned the wood keeps what the world erased

Cut a new one right beside his, same hand, different face

Insurance don't cover what a symbol's worth

The adjuster laughed, called it superstition since birth

Told him every barn we lost had no mark on the beam

Every mark we cut is a door the fire couldn't lean

Pre-Chorus

So what do you carve when the water's at your door

What do you mark when you're building it once more

He's gone now but the chisel's got his grip inside

The work's the symbol, that's how the dead survive

Chorus

Runes in the rafters, hidden where the roofline bends

Every house still standing got a mark that never ends

Not magic, just a memory some hand refused to lose

Runes in the rafters, that's the debt the timber pays in truth

Bridge

Some nights I don't believe in circles cut in oak

Just old world thinking dressed as something that we spoke

But I carve one anyway before I close the wall

Not for the fire, not the flood, not the miracle at all

I carve it for my daughter, forty with the plane

Wanting proof her father's hands were more than only strain

Chorus

Runes in the rafters, hidden where the roofline bends

Every house still standing got a mark that never ends

Not magic, just a memory some hand refused to lose

Runes in the rafters, that's the debt the timber pays in truth