Oxgang

Lyrics

He lowers his heavy head into the ash-wood bow
The rubbed-smooth hollow where his shoulder goes
I hook the traces, feel the morning frost
And we start the long math of what a harvest costs
He doesn’t know the man with the brass scale
Or the vellum roll keeping tally in the hall
He only knows the iron and the biting gale
And the mud that tries to hold him when the rain begins to fall

And they call it a line in a ledger book
Written down in a steady, quiet hand
But I know the shape of the breath it took
To drag our shadow across the land
Spring to autumn, pulling iron through the dark
A whole year flattened to a surveyor’s mark

My palms know the kick of a buried stone
Half a heartbeat before the plowshare hits
We walk this geometry of mud and bone
While the blade scours silver on the hidden flints
Turn at the hedgerow, set the point and pull
We leave a straight line drawn across the gray
The man in the manor house is sleeping full
While we buy someone else's tomorrow with our today

And they call it a line in a ledger book
Written down in a steady, quiet hand
But I know the shape of the breath it took
To drag our shadow across the land
Spring to autumn, pulling iron through the dark
A whole year flattened to a surveyor’s mark

When the ground freezes over and the work is done
And the steam rises thick from his trembling hide
They’ll measure the kingdom by the sweat of this one
And draw up the borders from the warmth inside
But you can’t weigh the ache in a heavy thigh
Or the silence we share when the light gets low

Just a number on a page when the ink is dry
Turn him around
We have three more rows to go
Keep walking
Until the end of the row