Dear Old Burnt-Out Former Mill Building That I Met On a Walk One Sunny Day Last Month,

You scare me. I am afraid of who is lurking around your corners and I am afraid of falling through your floor. My own building sometimes screams in the wind with a sound that pierces me and I am afraid you have that potential, that you are haunted by whatever abuses have been heaped on you.

Old mill, you occupy this land by the water, the bank I am scaling to find the pulse of the natural world. I climb the old iron rungs of concrete flood barricades and skirt chain-link fences trimmed with barbed wire. I walk the edge of the river when I can and, when I am forced to, I retreat to the road, where I find you. I have been searching for the rhythm of the river but you are here instead, an old shell slowly grinding into dust, a remnant with a raceway underneath. My tongue is heavy, metallic with fear, but I tread rotting planks, peer into pits that exude cool air so damp I can smell its greenness.

With affection,

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