Last Signal

I spent twenty-eight years climbing iron ladders in the fog

Tightening bolts on towers overlooking the hollows

But last week I drove down to the state line road

To grease the gears of a dead frequency

The clipboard said decommissioning,

the town was small and dry

I remember climbing this same rusted spire

thirty years ago

When the hospital pager

couldn't reach me past the ridge

I had to hang from the harness

to hear the doctor say her name

Oh, the signal lost

is never in the wire

It is not the copper

or the weather in the sky

We build these giants

just to throw our voices high

But the quietest departure doesn't make a sound (mmm)

Three years of silence

is a long time to keep a line clean

I looked at the logbook

in the metal box at the base

Her number was the last one stamped in red ink on the

tape

She tried to call the emergency line while the storm was coming

down

And I was home,

watching the static on the screen

I spent my whole life fixing how the voices carry

Thinking distance was the only thing we had to fight

But standing in the shadow of this cold steel giant

I see the dial was spinning,

but I had turned off the light

Oh,

the signal lost

is never in the wire

It is not the copper

or the weather in the sky

We build these giants

just to throw our voices high

But the quietest departure doesn't make a sound (doesn't make a sound)

I'm dialing her number from the gravel below

(please pick up)