“Mourning House” Verse 1 The house still breathes in the dim of the tar-black night, With the walls bent low and the windows blind. Her silence sits where the candle died, And the clock just drips through the dirt inside. A gown of dust on the chair she blessed, Cold hands folded over a hollow chest. I hear her voice in the stairwell sigh, Like a moth caught slow in a dead man’s cry. Chorus Mother, sleep in the mud and stone, Sleep where the roots have overgrown. I carry your name like a rusted chain, Dragging it deep through the flood and rain. Mother, your shadow will not depart, It coils like smoke in the marrow of my heart. The earth took shelter where you once stood, And the night learned love from your buried blood. Verse 2 The porch leans east like a broken jaw, And the weeds climb high through the gospel floor. Every room is a wound with a ringing frost, Every breath I take is a thing long lost. Your picture hangs with a cracked-out face, Smiling through time’s slow cruelty and pace. I kneel in the ash where your apron lay, And the grief in the hallway will not decay. Chorus Mother, sleep in the mud and stone, Sleep where the roots have overgrown. I carry your name like a rusted chain, Dragging it deep through the flood and rain. Mother, your shadow will not depart, It coils like smoke in the marrow of my heart. The earth took shelter where you once stood, And the night learned love from your buried blood. Spoken Word Breakdown (half-whispered, hollow, and slow — like a funeral dirge echoing through an empty chapel) She was the lantern in the storm. The last warm thing in a room full of winter. She tied the cuts. She cooled the fever. She whispered life into broken sons and daughters with hands that had already begun to tremble. Now the bed is empty. Now the basin is dry. Now the mirrors keep her shape only long enough to remember what it means to lose. Mother... your bones are not gone. They have only learned the language of the deep earth. Your kindness still haunts the cupboards. Your absence still kneels at the table. And I — I am the ash left behind when a holy house burns down. Breakdown scream: *REST — IN — THE — SOIL! HOLY MOTHER, HUSHED IN MUD! I CARRY YOUR GRAVE IN MY RIBS! I CARRY YOUR GRAVE IN MY RIBS!* Final Chorus Mother, sleep in the mud and stone, Sleep where the roots have overgrown. I carry your name like a rusted chain, Dragging it deep through the flood and rain. Mother, your shadow will not depart, It coils like smoke in the marrow of my heart. The earth took shelter where you once stood, And the night learned love from your buried blood. Outro No bell can name you. No hymn can hold you. Only the black earth And the ache of my mouth Saying mother Like a prayer Drowned in tar.
