They built it by the broken ground
where the blackened stone had burst,
No one claims who laid the first
or spoke the warning first.
When ember-glass came spearin’ up
and split the valley wide,
We learned too late what lay below
was never ours to mine.
The builders tried to warn us plain,
said, “Guide it, don’t you break,”
But hands like ours don’t heed a word
when there’s more to take.
So fire found the open seams,
and stone began to bleed,
What could not be taken out
became what we must heed.
Oh, the tower burns on high
where the wounded world was torn,
Not to conquer flame and ash,
but to hold what can’t be worn.
What we broke, we learned to bind,
let the steady fire atone—
You don’t tame the fire below,
you learn to guide its tone.
So up beside the living shard
they raised that spire tall,
Set its roots in fractured earth,
set its crown above it all.
Not to choke the ember’s breath,
not to drown its cry,
But draw its fury to a point
and turn it to the sky.
Now the flame that once ran wild
moves steady through the stone,
Where it split the land in rage
now it mends what was undone.
Travelers climb in quiet steps,
they speak in lowered tones,
Of a warmth that heals the weary
like a mercy in the stone.
Oh, the tower burns on high
where the wounded world was torn,
Not to conquer flame and ash,
but to hold what can’t be worn.
What we broke, we learned to bind,
let the steady fire atone—
You don’t tame the fire below,
you learn to guide its tone.
It ain’t no crown of victory,
it ain’t no banner raised,
Just a lesson cut in living rock
and a debt that still is paid.
The scar was sealed, not never made,
the past don’t turn to dust—
You can bind the wound with fire,
but you can’t unlearn the cost.
Oh, the tower burns on high,
still watchin’ over all,
A pillar raised from broken ground
when we did not heed the call.
What we broke, we learned to bind,
let the steady fire atone—
When the earth begins to bleed,
you don’t conquer—
you atone.