The Shuttle Knows

[Verse 1]
The D train rumbles under Grand Concourse, it’s half past two.
Your Kente cloth is breathing on the dusty eighty-eight.
The window's open to the November chill I'm letting through,
And I'm carrying the silence your tired fingers used to make.

[Pre-Chorus]
For seven weeks, this melody has been a tangled thread.
I pulled it taut and watched it snap right back inside my head.
"The shuttle knows the way," you told me, bent above your shed.

[Chorus]
And oh, the warp and weft of it, the rhythm in the pull.
I finally heard your hands in mine, and now my loom is full.

[Verse 2]
Remember law school textbooks, stacked up by the door?
The smell of boiling groundnuts fighting with the Peckham roar.
You never said a word then, just watched me trace the dye,
But the heaviest thing I carried was the question in your eye.

[Pre-Chorus]
This stubborn chord progression was a knot I couldn't see.
I almost left it fraying, another song not meant for me.
"The shuttle knows the way," you said, and left the rest to me.

[Chorus]
And oh, the warp and weft of it, the rhythm in the pull.
I finally heard your hands in mine, and now my loom is full.

[Bridge]
They wanted affidavits, you gave me Adinkra.
This harmony's a secret held between here and Accra.

[Outro]
The song is done. The shuttle knows.
The pattern's done. The shuttle knows.