The Architecture of Rust

Iron flakes descend like heavy snow upon the river’s slow procession, each girder yielding its dark red skin to the patient damp of November.

We built these spans to master the gorge, driving steel into the limestone teeth, ignoring the water's quiet vow to unmake everything we fastened.

Now the cables sing a lower note, slackening under the weight of decades. The river takes the rust without a sound, building its own secret bridges in the silt.