The Lydian Stater (Final)

Lyrics

Istanbul. The air is cool and still.
Past the sarcophagi, through the long hall.
Just a whisper of filtered light.
And then, the glass.
And then, you.

Smaller than my thumbnail.
Not even perfectly round.
They call you a stater. The first one.
Electrum, panned from the Pactolus.
That river still runs, you know.
It doesn't remember King Croesus.
But it remembers this pale gold in its bed.
Two thousand six hundred years under glass.

The lion’s head.
A roar made of metal and silence.
The first time a king said: This is what it’s worth.
Not by weight alone.
But by my mark. By this promise.
The first time trust was struck by a hammer.

I think of the hand that held the punch.
The other side of you is just a dent, a scar.
The brute force that made the promise stick.
Did he know? The man at the anvil.
Did he look at this little lump of river-gold
and see Athens? Rome?
The galleons and the dollars and the code?
Or did he just see his work for the day?

The lion’s head.
A roar made of metal and silence.
The first time a king said: This is what it’s worth.
Not by weight alone.
But by my mark. By this promise.
The first time trust was struck by a hammer.

The cowrie had its own logic. The curve of the sea.
But you... you were a shout. An edict.
From you, the owl learned to watch.
The eagle learned to fly.
Every face on every coin is just your echo.
You are the ancestor cell.
And you have no idea what you've done.
You just sit.

The guard is looking at his watch.
Soon they will turn out the lights.
And you will sleep here in the dark.
The first one.
The last time there was a first one.
Good night, little lion.
Good night.