Still Water

Feel: Sparse piano and acoustic guitar open the song. Strings enter at the bridge. A gospel choir breathes in underneath the final chorus — felt more than heard at first, then fully present.

Vocal approach: Two voices. The sisters. They sing separately for most of the song — then together for the final chorus.

Influences: The Civil Wars, Audrey Assad, traditional Filipino kundiman melancholy

INTRO (piano, single notes)

(hummed melody)

Lyrics:

VERSE 1 (Sister 1 — solo, quiet)

We crossed the ocean with our suitcases and hope

Mama’s name like a lantern in the dark

We were daughters looking for a place to finally belong

But the door was open and the house was cold

She had built another life before we could arrive

Set another table, shared another name

And we learned to love her from a careful distance

Like you love a candle through a windowpane

PRE-CHORUS

Lord, I don’t know how to hold

What I never had the chance to know

How do you grieve a love that never came?

How do you let go and still remain?

CHORUS (both sisters, first time together)

She is still our mother

Even now, even here

In this room where the machines

Are breathing what she cannot breathe

We are still her daughters

Even with our wounds and years

God, let mercy meet us

In the place we’re standing now

Still water, still water

Carry us somehow

VERSE 2 (Sister 2 — solo)

I used to write the letters that I never sent

Full of questions, full of things I couldn’t say

Did you ever wonder if we needed you to stay?

Did you know we watched the door for you each day?

Now the tables have been turned so quietly

And it’s us who hold the choice you never gave

I forgive you not because it doesn’t cost me

But because I won’t let bitterness be my grave

PRE-CHORUS (both sisters)

Lord, we don’t know how to hold

What we never had the chance to know

How do you grieve a love that never came?

How do you let go and still remain?

CHORUS

She is still our mother

Even now, even here

In this room where the machines

Are breathing what she cannot breathe

We are still her daughters

Even with our wounds and years

God, let mercy meet us

In the place we’re standing now

Still water, still water

Carry us somehow

BRIDGE (strings rise, one voice, then both — the most honest moment)

We are saints in training

Waiting to heal

We are two women

Learning how to kneel

At the altar of something

We don’t understand

Placing what we’re holding

Into better hands

She was broken, we were broken

And only grace can bridge that span

So we release her, God, we release her

Back into Your hands

(pause — silence — one breath)

FINAL CHORUS (full voices, choir underneath, strings swelling — E major now)

She was still our mother

Even then, even there

Even when the love she gave us

Was not more than she could bear

We are still her daughters

We were more than what she knew

And the God who sees the sparrow

Sees this room and sees us too

Still water, still water

You have always led us here

Still water, still water

Even now — especially here