Doubloon

Lyrics

Doubloon.
Just the name.
Doblón. Double.
A sound like a stone dropped in a deep well.

You were born in Mexico City, maybe.
1535.
Twenty-seven grams of nearly pure trouble.
The face of Charles the Third, who never saw the mountain you were pulled from.
The Pillars of Hercules, holding up a world you would circle.
You were eight escudos.
You were a standard.
But you were never just a number.

Doubloon.
The word the pirates whispered.
The gleam in the bottom of a chest buried in sand.
The last thing a sailor saw before the ship went down.
You were never just the gold.
You were gold's most romantic name.

Then 1787.
A workshop on Broad Street.
Ephraim Brasher, a neighbor to a general,
stamped a new sun rising over a new mountain.
Nova Eboraca. Columbia. Excelsior.
Ever Higher.
And his own small mark, EB,
a promise whispered onto the wing of an eagle.
The first of your kind, born in a new country.

Doubloon.
The word the pirates whispered.
The gleam in the bottom of a chest buried in sand.
The last thing a sailor saw before the ship went down.
You were never just the gold.
You were gold's most romantic name.

January, 2021.
A quiet room. Bright lights.
No sand, no seawater.
Just a voice, naming a number.
Nine point three six million.
For the story. For the survival. For the name.
And no one spoke the names of the miners.
The hands, lost to the record,
that first broke you from the earth.

From a mountain, to a mint.
From a king's ship, to a pirate's pocket.
From Brasher's warm hand, to a velvet box under glass.
You are the story we agree to tell about the metal.
You are the weight.
You are the name.
Doubloon.