Vickery Creek Falls and the Mill Ruins

Lyrics

[Intro]
I can hear you from the parking lot.
Off Grimes Bridge Road.
Before I even see the water.

[Verse 1]
A Saturday morning in March.
The Labradors are running free, their barks echoing off the trees.
Down the trail, past the warning signs, the air gets cooler, damper.
And the sound gets bigger.
A steady white roar that fills my chest.
The promise of the falls.

[Chorus]
Thirty feet of water over granite.
The same sound Roswell King heard in 1839.
A sound that meant power, meant business, meant looms.
Now it just means the weekend.
And the brick ruins of the 1853 mill stand open to the sky, listening.

[Verse 2]
I put my hand on the wall.
Still solid. Still holding its line.
I think of the ledger book.
The one line for 'the Spanish-speaking man.'
No name.
Did he stand here, feel the spray on his face?
Or did the shriek of the turbines drown out the song of the creek?
The metallic tang of wet rust from the housings.

[Chorus]
Thirty feet of water over granite.
The same sound General Garrard heard in 1864.
A sound that meant target, meant asset, meant fire.
Now it just means peace.
And the brick ruins of the upper mill stand open to the sky, listening.

[Bridge]
I walk across the restored covered bridge.
New wood on an old path.
The water doesn't remember the silence after the burning.
It doesn't remember the women sent north on a train.
It just keeps falling.
Washing the stones.
Turning the ruins into a garden for the ivy and the ferns.

[Outro]
The dog-walkers are heading home.
The light is turning gold through the pines.
But you just keep falling, Vickery Creek.
You just keep singing your one long, patient song.