[Intro]
[Instrumental Intro: Acoustic lyre plays the three-note motif with pauses shaped like inhalation.]

[Verse 1]
Two trunks lay pale beside the foam,
No root beneath, no branch above.
The tide had rolled them far from home,
Unclaimed by hunger, grief or love.
One ash was scarred by salted stone,
One elm held shells along its side.
We saw no face, no flesh, no bone—
Yet something waited in the tide.

[Pre-Chorus]
VEE-lee touched the silent grain.
VAY drew warmth through wood and rain.
I bent low where lips might be
And gave one breath from god to tree.

[Chorus]
Breath for Ash and Elm, rise from the shore.
Open your eyes where none opened before.
Take mind, take warmth, take color and name;
Walk on the earth that was fashioned from pain.

[Verse 2]
AHS-kur drew air with splintered sound,
His fingers pressed strange ground.
EM-blah woke and touched her hair,
Then stared at clouds that had once been there—
Inside the skull of one now gone,
Before the sea, before the dawn.
She asked no word, yet in her gaze
I saw the judgment of later days.

[Pre-Chorus]
VEE-lee gave the will to learn.
VAY gave senses—cold and burn.
I gave spirit, breath and song;
No gift could prove our making wrong.

[Chorus]
Breath for Ash and Elm, rise from the shore.
Open your eyes where none opened before.
Take mind, take warmth, take color and name;
Walk on the earth that was fashioned from pain.

[Dialogue]
[Male Vocal: AHS-kur] Why does the red sea strike the sand?
[Female Vocal: EM-blah] Why does white bone crown the land?
[Male Vocal: AHS-kur] Who raised the sky we stand beneath?
[Female Vocal: EM-blah] Whose final silence gave us breath?
[Male Vocal: OH-din] Stay long enough to ask me still.
No god can answer every will.

[Instrumental]
[Instrumental Direction: Lyre and tagelharpa begin acoustically; guitars and full drums gradually join without obscuring the melody.]

[Bridge]
We had shaped walls, but not a home;
We had raised sky, but not a poem.
We had made distance, depth and height,
But none could wonder at the sight.
Their first joined footprints crossed the strand—
And guilt acquired a living hand.

[Final Chorus]
Breath for Ash and Elm, rise from the shore.
Carry your questions through every door.
Take mind, take warmth, take color and name;
Make more than conquest from suffering and flame.
The world is unfinished and given to you.

[Coda]
AHS-kur ok EM-blah, AHN-dah FAW—
Breathe beneath the first morning star.

[Outro]
Two figures walked where blood met land,
Their prints remained upon the sand.
Behind them gods and sea stood still;
Ahead lay every human will.