MATCHSTICK OATH
We walked the ridge where the river cuts low,
Boone and his kin through the frost and the snow.
No blood in our veins makes us brothers by right,
Just the weight of the vow in the dead of the night.
The world’s gone to rust, with its promises broke,
But we hold to the words that we carved in the oak.
A brother’s your shadow when the wasteland’s unkind,
His strength is the tether when you’re losin’ your mind.
Rivers run deep, through the stone and the clay,
We stand as one when the light fades away.
One word, one bond, through the sorrow and strife,
We carry the load till the end of this life.
We buried our fears in the roots of the pine,
Swore on the current where the waters entwine.
When the raiders come callin’, or the hunger takes hold,
A brother’s the fire that keeps out the cold.
The wind tells no tales of the men who’ve gone down,
But we sing for the lost in this ghost-haunted town.
Through the mud and the mire, through the ache in our bones,
We lean on each other when we’re walkin’ alone.
Rivers run deep, through the stone and the clay,
We stand as one when the light fades away.
One word, one bond, through the sorrow and strife,
We carry the load till the end of this life.
A vow ain’t just words, it’s the weight of the years,
The scars that we share through the blood and the tears.
For the ones who still breathe, for the ones in the ground,
Our brotherhood holds where no hope can be found.
Rivers run deep, through the stone and the clay,
We stand as one when the light fades away.
One word, one bond, through the sorrow and strife,
We carry the load till the end of this life.
We carry the load… till the river runs dry.