The Cedar Bird

[Intro]
[Verse]
Cardboard box beneath the light
Moving things from left to right
Found a piece of cedar pine
Waiting for a word of mine
Rough around the edges now
Just like his old furrowed brow
[Verse]
Half a wing and half a beak
The wood is dry and very weak
Found it in a jar of nails
Hidden from the winter gales
He never liked to talk at all
Just sat there against the wall
[Pre-Chorus]
The shadow of his heavy hand
Is something I now understand
The silence that he used to keep
Is buried in the grain so deep
[Chorus]
I clear my throat like he did
A habit that I never hid
Tracing lines he left behind
In the quiet of my mind
[Post-Chorus]
Cedar dust upon the floor
He don't need it anymore
Just a ghost inside the wood
Doing what he only could
[Verse]
I remember how his thumb
When the winter made him numb
Had a scar from sixty-two
That he always showed to you
He’d whistle low and out of tune
Underneath a paper moon
[Bridge]
Why did he stop at the chest?
Did the cedar put his heart to rest?
Or did the grain get too tough?
Maybe he had seen enough
I’ll find the blade and start to shave
The little bird he couldn't save
[Chorus]
I clear my throat like he did
A habit that I never hid
Tracing lines he left behind
In the quiet of my mind
[Verse]
I’m leaning on the porch rail now
Wiping sweat across my brow
Sun is sinking in the trees
Feeling every summer breeze
Where his work ends, I begin
Letting all the memories in
[Verse]
I see how I hold the knife
Mirror of his quiet life
The bird is finally taking flight
In the fading amber light
Every shaving falls away
Like the words he didn't say
[Outro]