The grave was not a refuge The grave was not a sleep The grave was not a refuge The grave was not a sleep The earth went down beneath me And something said Stand on your feet I heard the dirt move under my bones Four black corners pulling me low The room got deeper inside the ground Enough for a man to be stood back up Enough for a judgment to walk around I had no lungs but I heard the breath I had no mouth but I tasted death An iron hand on the lid of the night And a voice like a nail driven into the light What did you carry What did you keep What did you bury Too deep to speak Rise Tell me your name Rise Tell me your name The book is open The letters remain But the mouth of the guilty Can’t make the shape Rise Tell me your name I said I had one once I swear that I did A word my mother gave me When I was only a kid It lived in the doorway It came when they called It stood on my papers It hung on my wall But I spent it in pieces I traded it slow One little wrong thing Nobody would know One smile where the sorrow was One lie that paid One hand held clean While the other hand strayed Now there is a place Where the letter should be And whatever is left there Won’t answer for me Rise Tell me your name Rise Tell me your name The book is open The letters remain But the mouth of the guilty Can’t make the shape Rise Tell me your name No name No cover No name No mother No name No face No word To stand in my place The rod comes down The dust comes free What clung to the flesh Still clings to me Shake it loose Beat it clean Pull the rot From in-between I thought when the body fell still That the body was through That bone had no memory And earth asked nothing of you But the soul came back Like fire through a wound And the grave grew tall To make judgment room I stood in the hole Like a man in a door And I knew what a name Had been given me for Not to hide me Not to save me Not a word I could wear A name was a witness That I had been there I do not ask for reward I do not ask for a crown I do not ask for the record To be folded or burned Only this When the hand reaches down When the earth gives way When the voice asks the question Do not let me be A stranger to my own name I have heard of men Whose names turned thin A letter falling For every sin I have heard of names That rot in the grave Until there is nothing Left to say But I am still here While the blood runs warm While the word may yet Be returned to form So write me again Before I am stone Teach my mouth mercy Before I go home Rise Tell me your name Rise Tell me your name Before the grave opens Before the rods rain Before every missing letter Testifies to my shame Rise Tell me your name I will say it now While I still can speak I will say it whole With my knees grown weak I will not wait For the dirt to explain I am still alive I will answer my name The grave was not a refuge The grave was not asleep And somewhere below every word I had buried A voice kept asking Rise Tell me your name Rise Tell me your name
