Serotinous Seed Lyrics

The air weighs heavily on my back
And sits as stone on my shoulders.
I wake face down on the ground
With the smoky taste of burned soil.

I open my eyes to a charred landscape
Of trees and homes scorched to black,
Of hills of dark and smoldering ash,
To towering stacks of skulls.
Death blankets the whole earth
Like a dust that spreads its wings
And settles on everything.

The smoke trails on for miles.
We fight just to breathe.
I am the serotinous seed.
Amidst the black I bloom,
Birthed of blood and fire,
Built to prosper in the black.
I am serotinous,
Built to defy the hand of death.

The white sun is smeared behind a charcoal sky,
The bullets of light pierce through the inky clouds.

Blessed with the strength of life,
Blessed with a life in death.
I was made to take the hard road,
Blessed with a curse.

Bring your fire here, call me to rise,
And I will reach the heavens.
I am the serotinous seed!

Raise the siege, raise the flags.
Raise the siege, “Cry ‘havoc!’
and let slip the dogs of war!”

[A serotinous seed (a seed that exhibits serotiny) is a seed that only opens with environmental triggers such as with heat from wildfires or forest fires. The freshly burnt ground after such an event is fertile, and this survival tactic allows Aleppo Pines (Pinus Halepensis), for example, to be one of the first plants to regrow after a fire.]