Yap Stone Underwater

Lyrics

Four hundred miles of open water.
From the limestone quarries of Palau.
One canoe, one crew, one perfect circle of stone, heavy with its own story.

They chipped it from the island's white heart.
Twelve men, two moons of labor.
Its edges were smooth as a worn tooth.
They lashed it to the outrigger, felt the canoe sink lower in the water.
A good weight.
A bride price, a king's ransom.
They set sail on the morning tide, singing the names of their ancestors.

The sky turned the color of a bruise on the third day out.
The wind didn't rise, it fell on them.
A wall of water and a howl from the throat of the sea.
The palm-fiber lashings frayed, then snapped.
One final lurch in the dark.
No one screamed.
Just the hiss of rope, the scrape of stone on wood...
and a heavy, final splash that stole the sound from the air.
Then only the storm again.

But the stone is still good.
The elders listened, and the elders agreed.
Its name is known.
Its owner is known.
It sits at the bottom of the sea, earning interest in salt and coral...
and it is still good.

They made it home to Yap with nothing but the story.
A story of a perfect stone.
A story of a perfect storm.
They gathered the village in the men's house.
Spoke of the weight, the craftsmanship, the way it caught the sun before the clouds came.
They passed the story around the fire like a cup.
Every man drank.

And the stone is still good.
The village listened, and the village agreed.
Its name is known.
Its owner is known.
It sits at the bottom of the sea, tangled in weed and memory...
and it is still good.

An anthropologist wrote it down in 1910.
William Henry Furness the Third.
He didn't quite believe it.
How do you own what the ocean holds?
How do you spend a ghost?
But the account is clear.
The family who owned it paid a debt with it a year later.
The new owner never saw his purchase.
He didn't need to.
He simply knew.

So it's down there now.
A perfect circle of wealth.
A ledger kept in memory.
The first block on the chain is a story told by tired men.
The transaction is a whisper on the wind.
It is still good.