The Gilded Decay

The copper wires hum a dying frequency, woven through the ribs of an old transformer where the rain has begun its patient census, counting every scale of rust like prayer beads.

Lichen spreads its maps across the steel, pale green continents claiming a fallen sky, ignoring the warnings of "High Voltage" faded now to a whisper in the tall grass.

There is a music in the slowing down, the rhythmic drip from a corrugated roof, the way the shadow of the crane lengthens to touch the first blue flowers of the spring.