Lateral Blast

[Verse 1]
Your last postcard said the mountain was singing a new hymn
On a line of notebook paper, torn right to the rim.
It was May seventeenth, the air smelled of pine and static,
You wrote you were finally mapping out the whole schematic.

[Chorus]
And I guess some faults run too deep in the bedrock to mend,
Some pressures build up 'til the hollering has to end.
It wasn't your leaving that broke us, I finally understand,
It was the silence of the lateral blast across the land.

[Verse 2]
Mama watched the news crawl, from her chair beside the phone,
Said, "Some transformers just can't take that kind of load alone."
Now I string copper wire over roads you used to drive,
And test the gradient for stress, where the alkali thrives.

[Chorus]
And I guess some faults run too deep in the bedrock to mend,
Some pressures build up 'til the hollering has to end.
It wasn't your leaving that broke us, I finally understand,
It was the silence of the lateral blast across the land.

[Bridge]
They say the sound arrived a full minute after the light,
And I spend my nights tracing that voltage drop in my own life.
That long, humming quiet between the flash and the report,
A promise cut short.

[Chorus]
I know some faults run too deep in the bedrock to mend,
Some pressures build up 'til the hollering has to end.
It wasn't the leaving that broke me, Dad, I finally understand,
It was the silence of the lateral blast across the land.

[Outro]
Just the hum of the wire...
And the ash in the wind.