You float above the cryptomeria roots
Where ancient stone holds silence absolute
Each footfall vibrates through the hull's dark grain
A rhythm measured in the frozen rain
Sediment remembers every step
The temple breathes in soil and depth
You tally marks on water's skin
Where light has never penetrated in
Rowboat counts the steps that pass above
Temple dreams of quartz and mica love
Snow insulates the sacred geometry
You keep the count with wooden memory
Rhizomes thread through mortar joints unseen
The oldest chapel ever screened in green
Footsteps fade like spores on winter wind
You track each ghost where stone and water pinned
Sediment remembers every step
The temple breathes in soil and depth
You tally marks on water's skin
Where light has never penetrated in
Rowboat counts the steps that pass above
Temple dreams of quartz and mica love
Snow insulates the sacred geometry
You keep the count with wooden memory
Your keel rests on a bed of sphagnum moss
Time calculates the carbon cycle's cost
Each pilgrim's tread becomes a data point
You anchor deep in silence joint by joint
Rowboat counts the steps that pass above
Temple dreams of quartz and mica love
Snow insulates the sacred geometry
You keep the count with wooden memory
Lichen maps the corridor in lime
Centuries compressed to geologic time
The boat persists through seasons without name
A witness to the temple's hidden fame
Rowboat counts the steps that pass above
Temple dreams of quartz and mica love
Snow insulates the sacred geometry
You keep the count with wooden memory
Now spring thaw lifts the ice from off your planks
The temple wakes along the river banks
Footsteps cease but roots continue growth
You float released from counting beneath oath
Rowboat counts the steps that pass above
Temple dreams of quartz and mica love
Snow insulates the sacred geometry
You keep the count with wooden memory
Wood remembers what the snow forgot
Roots and keel share one quiet thought
