H. Gordon Jones: The First Key

Lyrics

Nineteen twenty-three.
And here you are.
Heavy brass in my palm.
The first key.
H. Gordon Jones.
My name. Your teeth.

Before the brick, there was the paper.
The rustle of blueprints across Smith's oak table.
A smell of graphite and ambition.
Lines on a page, promising shelter,
promising stature.
A roofline sharp against a Georgia sky I'd only imagined.
Every window, every door frame,
a future I was buying by the square foot.
He'd point with his pencil, I'd nod.
Yes. That one.
The American Colonial Revival.
A revival for me.

And oh, this weight in my hand.
This cold brass, this cut metal.
The key to twenty-one Cherokee Road.
This isn't just a house, it's a foundation.
The first turn of a lock on a story
I hope they will tell.

Now, I stand on the raw, red clay.
The grass hasn't taken yet.
The air is plaster dust and fresh paint,
the promise of cured oak floors beneath my feet.
Empty rooms echo my footsteps,
waiting for rugs, for voices, for life.
Waiting for a family whose names are not on the deed.
I touch the cool newel post,
and I see a hundred Christmases.
A ghost of a life, not yet lived.

And oh, this weight in my hand.
This cold brass, this cut metal.
The key to twenty-one Cherokee Road.
This isn't just a house, it's a foundation.
The first turn of a lock on a story
I hope they will tell.

They won't know my trade.
They won't know my wife's face, or if I even had one.
They won't know what I dreamt of in the master bedroom,
staring at the ceiling while the city slept.
They will only have this.
The straight lines. The solid door.
The way the light falls in the afternoon.
My only testament, left in wood and stone.
Was it enough, Mr. Jones?
Was it enough?

The first key.
The first lock.
Twenty-one.
Home.