The smokestacks rest like folded ladders,
Their iron lungs finally still.
Through broken loading docks,
Sunflowers clock the hours of peace.
Children map rivers where railroads slept,
Tracing freight lines into bicycle trails.
Warehouses hum with bees now,
Stacking gold in patient geometry.
Old sirens rust into wind chimes,
And shift changes become bird migrations.
We inherit the bricks,
But teach them gentler echoes.