The Hearth's First Fire: A New Home's Soul

Lyrics

The air tastes of plaster dust and fresh-cut pine. 
Cold.

Nineteen twenty-three.
Mr. Jones, H. Gordon Jones, stands alone in the great room.
His new shoes echo on the new oak floor.
He looks at the hearth, carved by hands whose names are lost, just as Mr. Smith... Francis Palmer Smith... had drawn it.
Perfect lines.
Cold stone.
A mouth waiting for its first word.

A house is only timber and bone.
A house is just a number on a road.
Until the first fire is lit.
Until the first breath of smoke chases the ghost of the paint.
And the cold stone heart of the hearth... learns to beat.

The kindling catches.
A tiny sun of newspaper and fatwood.
It reaches for the split oak logs, whispering.
And suddenly, the shadows on these high new ceilings begin to dance.
The smell of pine pitch, sharp in the air.
The chill pulls back from the tall windows, from the leaded glass panes.
The room breathes in... smoke.
Breathes out... warmth.

A house is only timber and bone.
A house is just a number on a road.
Until the first fire is lit.
Until the first breath of smoke chases the ghost of the paint.
And the cold stone heart of the hearth... learns to beat.

This is the first one.
The first of a hundred winters.
The first of ten thousand fires to come.
It's a promise whispered to the plaster and the beams.
A promise that there will be stories told here.
Arguments and laughter.
Sickness and holidays.
That life will happen here.
Right here.
Twenty-one Cherokee Road.

The house is breathing now.
Warm.
Alive.
It has a soul.
It's a home.