Cypress Static

[Verse 1]
The Beaufort County jpeg loads pixel by slow pixel,
We watch a ghost take breath on a laptop in September.
The filename says one-eight-nine-three, a year of dust and sickle,
A face we feel in our own bones, but none of us remember.

[Chorus]
We hold this new light in our hands,
This covenant of static and code.
Her eyes, a brackish testament,
And the silence is not an empty road.

[Verse 2]
My cousin from Philly texts, "She got Mama's hands, see?"
We trace the sweetgrass pattern she's holding on her knee.
They wrote her husband's story as 'laborer, deceased',
But her grip on that basket is a covenant with 'we'.

[Chorus]
We hold this new light in our hands,
This covenant of static and code.
Her eyes, a brackish testament,
And the silence is not an empty road.

[Bridge]
The roots run under the ocean now, humming in the deep,
A promise made of copper wire the archives couldn't keep.

[Outro]
The screen goes dark. We know her name.