Leave the lantern lit a while
Past the hour I walk on through,
Not because the dark is coming,
Just because it's what I'd do for you.

I asked at the start of this whole record
If an echo holds when I am gone,
I think I already had my answer,
I just needed the length of this song.
It was never in the carving,
Never in the loudest chord,
It was in the sapling, in the pencil,
In the orchard, quietly restored.

So this is my last, simple asking,
Small as a gate left on its latch—
Not a headline, just a keeping,
Not forever, just this match.