Rocks Under the Hands

Lyrics

[Intro]
(wind on high ground, a carabiner clinking, far away)
Your hands are doing it again.

[Verse 1]
You climbed today. Six hours of it, maybe seven.
And now you're horizontal in a bed at half past eleven
and your fingers are still reading — still finding the edge,
the crimp, the sloper, the little sharp one at the top —
against a duvet. Against nothing. Against no rock at all.
Your hands have not been told. Nobody told your hands.

[Chorus]
Rocks under the hands. Grain under the fingertips.
The specific temperature of granite in the shade.
You are lying in a bed in a town in the dark
and your body is still on the wall and it is still working.
Rocks under the hands. It will fade by morning.
Tonight your palms are somewhere else entirely.

[Verse 2]
And it isn't a picture. That's what's interesting to me.
You're not seeing the route. You're not replaying the day.
It is purely in the skin — the texture and the weight,
the whole conversation between a hand and a hard thing,
running again with no rock and no hand-hold and no height.
The touch outlasts the seeing. Nobody warns you about that.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
Snow underfoot after skiing. Waves after a day on the water.
The rope's weight. The bike's judder. The horse's rhythm.
The particular give of a piano key if you played for hours.
Every craft leaves this behind, every single one,
and nobody talks about it, and everybody has it,
and it is the closest thing to proof that the day was real.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(the wind, dropping away)
One more move.
There isn't one more move. Sleep.