[Intro] (Bass pulse; bowed harmonics in the empty flat) The school gate wears a chain like a cold wristwatch. (Far-off wordless hum, low in the air) [Verse 1] Mara sets two cups by a window with no glass, Her son counts bus tickets, saving the blue backs. The school key sleeps beneath a council desk, Rain writes its lesson through a crack in the roof. A radio says letters between the weather reports, But the batteries give out before the sums are done. His lunch tin shines, empty beside the sink, While a tower crane turns above the playground wall. A landlord slips another notice under the door, His mother folds uniforms small inside a suitcase. A map is taped to the floor with bread-bag string, Each border asks the child to leave a friend behind. The new block gets cameras, marble, private guards, The old lane gets puddles and a broken streetlamp. [Chorus] No nursery under concrete, no cradle in a ledger, No child is a debt for a distant hand to measure. When the bell cannot ring, who hears the morning call? (Dub pause) You paved the little future, then called it progress for all. [Verse 2] Across a borrowed flat, schoolbooks ride in a rice sack, A girl keeps her pencil sharp with a kitchen knife. From Idlib to Sana’a, war made her alphabet wander, Yet she names every cloud above the camped-out buses. Her father queues for flour beneath a shuttered bank, Her auntie trades a phone charge for a cup of beans. A relief truck passes; the children watch its dust, Then practise multiplication on a carton flap. Men in clean offices trade tomorrow by the ton, Sign their bright papers where no child can reach. They close the public yard, call the fence security, And sell the view of sunlight back in monthly parts. Mi seh, a small hand needs more than a promise, It needs a desk, a meal, a door that stays open. [Chorus] No nursery under concrete, no cradle in a ledger, No child is a debt for a distant hand to measure. When the bell cannot ring, who hears the morning call? (Dub pause) You paved the little future, then called it progress for all. [Bridge] (Hand drum: one knock, then silence) Do not ask the mother to praise a painted wall When the tap coughs rust and the cupboard answers hollow. Do not bless the blueprint while the young sleep packed With names, notebooks, keys, and nowhere certain to go. (Bowed guitar harmonics rise, then fall away) [Final Chorus] No nursery under concrete, no cradle in a ledger, No child is a debt for a distant hand to measure. Let the quiet keep the question at the council door: (Dub pause) Who built a city that has no place for one child more? [Outro] (The hum recedes; bass pulse slows into silence) One chalk mark waits beneath the rain. (Tiny dry acoustic-guitar figure; no resolving chord)
