Coil and Stitch

[Verse 1]
Palmetto palm and sweetgrass woven tight on the kitchen Formica,
humid August, one-ninety-nine, a price tag for Americana.
She worked me through the static from the countertop transistor,
bone tool scraping, knuckles raw, a whispered list of scripture.
Smell of pluff mud on her fingers, binding me with pine-straw thread,
said the rhythm of the coil is a prayer for the unfed.
I was born inside the quiet of a screened-in porch's hum,
waiting for the tourist traffic, for the kingdom that would come.

[Chorus]
From the roadside to the record, that's a long-haul stitch.
From the bulrush to the budget, ain't a damn thing switched.
Same hands, different craft, same caloric burn.
I hold the past, you loop the track, a lesson that you learn.

[Verse 2]
(BEAT SWITCH)
Now I'm sitting on a speaker stack that cost more than the house,
watch you slice a cello sample with the clicking of a mouse.
See the same determined set of your jaw, the focus in the iris,
you're a different kind of weaver, battling a different virus.
Heard you on the phone with auditors, you spoke a different Gullah,
chopping numbers, chasing points, a brighter, colder color.
"'This is for the bloodline,' you said, hanging up the call."
You put your headphones back on, I watch you stand up ten feet tall.

[Chorus]
From the roadside to the record, that's a long-haul stitch.
From the bulrush to the budget, ain't a damn thing switched.
Same hands, different craft, same caloric burn.
I hold the past, you loop the track, a lesson that you learn.

[Outro]
The bone tool and the bass drop.
The coil and the clock.