Can anybody hear Tell my daughter North relay, channel seven I hear you Reached North Relay before the snow came down Old transmission tower over one dead town Windows boarded shut, rail buried in white One generator coughing through the middle of the night Gate had a warning stamped across the steel System decommissioned No records retrieved But the wire overhead kept singing through the cold Little human voices trapped inside the old Caretaker met me with a lantern and a limp Said, "The state cut funding, but the signal never quit" Every storm brought fragments from the final evacuation Names, room numbers, prayers, broken conversations He led me underground where the relay cabinets stood Black boxes blinking like they understood Thousands of recordings waiting under dust Every missing voice labeled Corrupted Do not trust I put headphones on He said, "Don't stay too long" First voice said, "Mama" Second voice sang a song Third gave directions to a shelter that fell Fourth only breathed But I remembered him well They called it dead air They called it debris But dead things don’t beg To be remembered by me Relay saint Carry my name Through the white noise Through the flame Relay saint Don’t let it fade Send me somewhere I can still be saved Wire to wire Pain to pain I hear the lost Inside the rain Relay saint Carry my name At two in the morning, government line came through Voice clean and calm like clean voices do Said, "Terminate archive, erase channel nine Unverified testimony compromises design" I asked, "Who gave the order?" They gave me a code I asked, "Who heard the messages?" Silence on the phone Caretaker looked tired Said, "They come every year Offer enough money to make memory disappear" Then he showed me one file marked emergency red Final train manifest with the living and dead Ninety-eight passengers Ninety-seven arrived One line scratched empty One name denied Malik Cross Car three Last transmission received I felt Glass Water Rise underneath Pressed play His voice came weak through the storm "Lucien, if you hear this Keep the relay on There are people in the tunnel And the maps are all wrong Tell whoever finds us We kept moving on" Seven seconds That was all he left Seven seconds hidden Because the record said lost Seven years of silence To protect somebody’s cost Relay saint Carry my name Through the white noise Through the flame Relay saint Don’t let it fade Send me somewhere I can still be saved Wire to wire Pain to pain I hear the lost Inside the rain Relay saint Carry my name A saint is just a person Someone else refuses to forget No halo No miracle Just one voice Carrying another voice Farther than it could travel alone I opened every channel Routed archive to the line Sent names through the districts One frequency at a time To the chapel To the highway To the prize hall screens To the train yards To the glassworks To every dead machine The whole city woke To the sound of the erased Mothers heard their children Lost workers named the place Soldiers gave coordinates Nurses listed beds People called from years ago To prove they had not left Control screamed, "Shut it down The relay grid will burn" I said, "Then let it burn loud enough For history to learn" Tower lights rose white Snow turned gold Every cable shook Every transformer rolled Caretaker asked, "What happens When the system overloads?" I said "Every voice gets out Then nobody knows" Relay saint Carry their names Through the white noise Through the flame Relay saint Nothing erased Send them everywhere The truth can still be traced
