Story: Before the Thread
Verse 1
At the sink in the blue-lit evening
a small hurt circled back like a bird.
Not with language at first —
just a dark wing
brushing the ribs,
troubling the water.
The room grew dense with almost-meaning,
with all the old threads
looking for a needle.
Then something eased.
Not healed,
not gone —
just eased enough
for the weaving to miss a stitch.
Refrain
Before it becomes a world,
before it gathers a name,
there is only the glimmer,
the pulse,
the flame.
Verse 2
A plate in the hand.
Warm water over the knuckles.
One bird outside the window
calling into the hedge.
The fridge with its small patient hymn.
A face appearing in thought
then folding back into air.
Everything close.
Everything unclaimed.
As if the evening had not yet decided
to break into someone and something.
Chorus
Before it becomes a world,
before the story learns to sing,
there is the cup,
the breath,
the late light thinning.
A sorrow may enter,
a memory may lean,
but even that passes
like rain through leaves unseen.
No hand behind the curtain.
No keeper of the stream.
Only the hush of living
and the names arriving late, like dream.
Verse 3
At sunset the hospital returned —
white corridor,
metal rail,
my father’s hands under fluorescent weather.
And grief came whole.
Not as history.
Not as lesson.
Just salt bright at the lip,
a tightening in the chest,
the old sea rising
without asking to be read.
Then the mind came with its lantern,
soft-footed, eager, faithful:
this is about loss,
this is about then,
this is about who you are
when the room goes dim.
Refrain
But before it becomes a world,
before it gathers a name,
there is only the trembling,
the ash,
the flame.
Chorus
Before it becomes a world,
before the story learns to sing,
there is the bench,
the dusk,
the dark bird’s wing.
A memory may open,
a thought may bow its head,
but even that is weather
crossing through the reeds.
No witness set apart from it.
No self behind the seam.
Only the field still shining
where the mind begins to dream.
Bridge
Then comes the soft machinery:
this means,
this proves,
this belongs to the wound,
this leads to tomorrow.
Little lanterns in the reeds.
Little hooks in the tide.
A whole house built from echo
and called a life inside.
But if I do not climb those stairs,
if I do not wear those clothes,
the night stays wide.
The heart stays weather.
The sky keeps opening
where no one goes.
Verse 4
So let the old songs gather.
Let them rise like mist from the ground.
Let the ache have its silver.
Let the thought make its sound.
I do not have to silence them.
I do not have to kneel.
I only have to notice
how the world is born from what I feel
when thread finds thread
and calls it fate,
when smoke finds shape
and calls it me.
And how, before that tender theft,
the evening was already free.
Final Chorus
Before it becomes a world,
before the story takes the sky,
there is the body,
the breathing,
the evening passing by.
And if the old names find me,
let them come, let them call —
beneath their fragile music
there is something prior to it all.
No centre holding fire.
No owner of the stream.
Only this bright vanishing
and the mind arriving late to dream.
Outro
Not the reason.
Not the proof.
Not the map pressed to the glass.
Just this soft collision —
light,
breath,
sorrow,
grass.
And later, if speech is needed,
speech can come.
If action is needed,
hands can move.
But first:
the bird,
the dusk,
the water,
the almost-wordless groove
before it becomes a world.
