Efflix 3. I Won’t Carry Your Name

For years I shaped her open hand
White dust was winter on my skin
No mark of mine beneath the stone—
I built the god and stayed unknown
Then cedar cracked above the stone
One man burned a god to be known
I won’t carry your name from the flame
I won’t be the mouth your ruin made
We will raise what you burned
Stone by stone, hand by hand
But I won’t carry your name from the flame

At dawn they asked me who he was
As if the answer were the cause
I knew the sound I let it fall
A name can be another wall
Artemis lay without her face
Black ash was falling through the place
But hands already cleared the ground—
Creation made the louder sound
Let ash erase the name he gave
Let builders be the names we save
I won’t carry your name from the flame
I won’t be the mouth your ruin made
We will raise what you burned
Stone by stone, hand by hand
But I won’t carry your name from the flame

Stone takes years
Fire takes one night
The world confuses noise with light
But memory is not innocent
Each tongue can raise a monument
Each time we speak the destroyer’s name
We place another stone beneath his fame

I won’t carry your name from the flame
I will carry the hands that built this place
When the white columns rise
You will vanish from the light
We will raise what you burned
Stone by stone, hand by hand
But I won’t carry your name from the flame

Fire had one night
We have the years