(INTRO sounds like a midwinter funeral) Snow seals the world in bone. Even the sky has learned to grieve. As old souls leave We wait in the bitterness and cold Verse I Black wings against a hollow sun Circling fields where life becomes nothing The earth is stiff with frozen breath Each step a hymn, each wind a death Feathers drink the color from light A living shadow in endless white No warmth remains, no harvest calls Only the echo of silent falls Chorus Raven in winter, keeper of graves Sings to the frost where no one is saved Carries the names of what has been Through endless sky and ashen wind Verse II Branches crack like broken bones Trees stand praying to no one home The raven waits where warmth once lay A patient god of slow decay Eyes like coals in dying ash Watching seasons rot and pass No nest survives, no song returns Only the hunger that never learns Bridge (slow, empty space) What does a raven do When even death is cold? It waits. It remembers. It outlives the world. Chorus (extended) Raven in winter, crown of night Feeding on what the snow erases from sight Guardian of the last exhale Carving sorrow in frozen trails Raven in winter, eternal roam A winged ghost with no true home Through endless gray you drift alone A funeral bell of flesh and bone The bitterness The lifeless The cold Outro The sun will die. The earth will sleep. Still the raven Will circle What we couldn’t keep.
