Sennight

Lyrics

We gave them the calendar. 
Let them have the sun.

The clerks in the city, they reckon by dawn,
By the strike of the hammer, the dust in the lung.
They log every morning in ledgers of brass,
And button the sun while the morning is young.
It's good that they do it, the world has to spin,
But the daytime is only the place we depart.
I sit by the window, the ash in the grate,
And wait for the heavy blue quiet to start.

To measure a sennight, you count by the deep,
The oceans of quiet we cross in the dark.
You tally the shadow, the shift of the wind,
The ember that glows from a solitary spark.
The daytime is yours, all polished and bright,
I'm keeping the silent, slow ledger of night.

My collarbone shifts when the temperature drops,
A shiver the muscle knows long before cold.
I trim back the wick with the iron shears,
And watch the magnificent blackness unfold.
Leaving a half-moon of ash on the tin,
A smudge on the plaster to track where we stand.
One mark for the silence, one mark for the frost,
A map of a quiet and borderless land.

To measure a sennight, you count by the deep,
The oceans of quiet we cross in the dark.
You tally the shadow, the shift of the wind,
The ember that glows from a solitary spark.
The daytime is yours, all polished and bright,
I'm keeping the silent, slow ledger of night.

Now they send us the papers with boxes and grids
To cut up the year into sensible shapes.
And daylight is useful, for building and trade,
A practical garment the calendar makes.
But we measured survival. We measured in breath.
A handful of evenings held back from the edge.

The clock on the mantle is ticking too neat,
It doesn't know what the black hours hold.
I blow out the taper. I loosen my grip.
A drop of the tallow turns white in the cold.
Let the sun have tomorrow.
I’ve counted the dark.