After a few quiet seconds, a slow tread starts under warm chords.

Her voice comes in plain and centered: I am my mother's savage daughter.

Barefoot running, then sharp stones, and the band stays spare enough that each word has air.

Here are the first refusals: I will not cut my hair. I will not lower my voice.

Now she lists the signs: stones, cats, feathers, fire, old bones, still over that same slow tread.

The name line comes back, and around here the rhythm under her gets a little more active.

Same self-name again, then the hair and voice vows return once more.

New picture: mother's child dancing in the dark, heathen songs by moonlight, staring up at renamed planets.

The words step out. The tread and the warm harmony just keep circling without a new line.

Listen: it is we now. Brought forth out of darkness, through blood and through pain.

Old songs waking, then thunder and rain in the voices she asks for.

The refrain is plural now: we are our mother's savage daughters.

Last vows together: we will not cut our hair, we will not lower our voice. Then it just stops and leaves the quiet hanging.