[Title: The Little Rabbit (v1.0)]

[Author: Stephen Holvik]

[Date: 2026-06-10]

[Verse 1 — steady fingerpicking, single voice]

I was walking through the green cathedral hall

Moss on every stone and rain on every wall

The ferns were curled like fists against the grey

And the whole wet world was holding its breath that day

A drop sat on a brow like a crown of glass

I heard nothing move and nothing came to pass

Just the birch branch bending low with the weight of rain

And a pair of ears that parsed every living grain

[Pre-chorus — tighter, two voices leaning in]

Oh, the eye held the whole forest in its dark

Every shadow, every sound, every flicker, every spark

And the whiskers read the morning like a line of Braille

On the Hall of Moses, deep in the Hoh, on a rain-grey trail

[Chorus — full ensemble, arena-wide, harmonies stacked]

Oh, the wet brown world was breathing

And the green was impossibly green

The oldest kind of wary, the oldest kind of free

In a rainforest cathedral where nothing goes unseen

I stood still as stone and slower

And I swear the rain went quiet for a beat

Before the branch swung back

And the leaves closed over

And the morning kept its secret

Down beneath my feet

[Verse 2 — half-time, hushed, mandolin tremolo underneath]

There was water on the birch leaf, there was water in the air

There was something ancient feeding, and I almost didn't dare

To breathe the fog back inward, to hold the whole thing close

But you cannot cup a raindrop, you cannot catch a ghost

The ground was dark with cedar rot and last year's fallen moss

And I numbered up the minutes like a man who knows his loss

One twitch of white-tipped whisker, one flick against the stem

And the whole green world reshuffled, and there was no there again

[Pre-chorus — building, stomping pulse, three voices]

Oh, the eye held the whole forest in its dark

Every shadow, every sound, every flicker, every spark

And I've stood in every weather and I've walked in every rain

But nothing reads the morning like that cold and gifted brain

[Chorus — building]

Oh, the wet brown world was breathing

And the green was impossibly green

The oldest kind of wary, the oldest kind of free

In a rainforest cathedral where nothing goes unseen

I stood still as stone and slower

And I swear the rain went quiet for a beat

Before the branch swung back

And the leaves closed over

And the morning kept its secret

Down beneath my feet

[Bridge — a cappella, tight three-part harmony, bare]

There are witnesses the forest never names

There are altars made of rainfall, vine, and rain

There are mornings you walk out of

And you're never quite the same

[Chorus — full, final, projection-ready, pedal steel over the banjo]

Oh, the wet brown world was breathing

And the green was impossibly green

The oldest kind of wary, the oldest kind of free

In a rainforest cathedral where nothing goes unseen

I stood still as stone and slower

And I swear the rain went quiet for a beat

Before the branch swung back

And the leaves closed over

And the morning kept its secret

Down beneath my feet

[Tag — held, breath-near, one voice, one note on the bass]

And the morning kept its secret

And the morning

Kept

Its green

THE · TALK · OF · THE · TOWN