歌詞

Your father worked our eastern rows

For barley, bread, and rent

You heard a scale in bucket chains

Saw blue where iron bent

You named the frost on horseshoes

Flour whitening my sleeve

The silver breath of one tired mare

Before the winter feed

I brought you through the servants' door

By spring, you tended the gallery

You polished gold you could not own

And taught me how to look

You named each color in the glass

I owned each painted frame

We called that looking side by side

I did not know the difference then

A merchant came with winter rain

And opened velvet black

He said the bell beneath the earth

Had named the mine and taught the cut

That made one candle many

He raised one glove to bar your way

I laughed before the room:

“Show him. His are the finest eyes in this house.”

Every candle entered it

And came back sharpened white

You did not breathe until he closed

The little vault of light

If you had never seen it

Would frost have been enough?

Would rust still ring like music?

Would flour still pass for snow?

They cut the stone to catch the light;

It caught your eyes instead

If you had never seen it

Would you have learned to want?

By dawn, the velvet kept one hollow

Your narrow bed was cold

To pay for what your hands had taken

We sold next winter's seed

The lower mill stood silent

Men cursed you by the gate

I heard my own voice answer them:

I was the one who said, “Show him.”

The rumours led me house by house:

You left the coins behind

But took whatever small hard fire

Might rival the first light

At last I found a rented room

With nothing fit for kings:

Black cloth, a crust, a candle-end

And rows of failing things

A knife lay in your hand

I caught your wrist. The knife slipped free

And rang against the floor

It turned once in the candlelight

You would not look at me

If I had never shown you

The rooms you could not own

Would rust still ring like music?

Would flour still pass for snow?

You named the colour. I named the price

We thought our looking equal

If I had never shown you

Would you still know my name?

A ledger lay across your knees

Each stone beside a name

Below the last, you wrote your own

“The first light passed beyond my eyes

I know each name,” you said

“But still my hands will follow it

Wherever jewels are kept.”

You placed the ledger in my hands

“Return them all,” you said

“If you would let that first light go

I heard of one more door

It waits beneath the orchard roots

I cannot promise more.”

Below the ruined orchard wall

Green copper marked a seam

I led you where the rain ran down

Until the bronze could speak:

“Tell me what must change?”

“A house, a field, a herd, four seasons—a life before the jewel

Let frost be bright enough again

Let hinges keep their song.”

The answer cut the dark between us

Spring broke through the stone

Summer rain crossed autumn wheat;

Then winter filled the road

You crossed. A calf breathed silver

Across the newborn snow

You smiled as years ago

You looked at me and bowed the way

One greets a stranger at the door

If I had never seen it—

That field beyond the door—

Would this old house be enough for me?

Would I have wanted more?

No jewel lit your face there;

First snow did, and you smiled

If I had never seen your field

I would have had no wish

The emerald found the widow

The chapel took its pearls

The first stone crossed the merchant's scale

Next winter's seed went back to earth

We rehung every painting

Every jewel found its owner

Your name was all I could not return

Your room was all that stayed bare

That winter, frost made silver

Of the hinges by the gate

Below the orchard, bronze rang once

Before I touched the rope:

“Tell me what must change?”