They sang it round the first wild fire before the fire had a name. Mouth to mouth through the pine and the frost, and no two sang the same. A whisper from the quiet dark, a warning from the stream. The Word was never written down. It lived inside a dream. Then came the smith with the hammer. Then came the forge's red flame. Someone said, "Hold it still," and bound the Word in a frame. Forge the Word in iron! Strike the anvil down! Let it ring across the valley till every voice is one sound! Iron in the voice, iron in the blood. What was breath is metal now, and metal doesn't budge! A thousand mouths repeating, a thousand wheels that turn. Every echo stamped the same, and nothing left to learn. They chanted it in foundries. They chanted it to war. They held the steel together, but forgot what it was for. But under all the clangor something old was still alive. It would not be hammered. It would not survive... as a sound. The iron cracked at midnight. The Word slipped through the seam. Back into the forest, the story, the embers' dying gleam. Break the Word from iron! Let it ring, let it bleed! Words were never weapons, words are what we need! Sing it round the fire, sing it wrong, sing it free. The Word was never iron. The Word is you and me. Mouth to mouth it travels. And no two sing the same.
