The Silent Witness: A Century's Gaze

Lyrics

They laid my first brick in damp red clay.
Before the avenue had a name.
Before the city knew my face.
I remember the smell of mortar and pine.
I am the spine.

The first sound I learned was the grind.
Atlanta Milling Company, 1898.
The air grew thick with a sweet, fine dust.
Capitola. Finest Family Flour.
I felt the weight of the wagons at my door.
I heard the millers, their footsteps on my floors.
I held the promise of bread in my bones.

My windows have watched a hundred years unspool.
My timber frame holds the echo of every tool.
I don't judge. I don't forget. I just contain.
The sweat, the dust, the sun, the rain.
I am the witness at 691.

Then the flour dust settled, and a new scent came.
Earthy, oily. The Virginia Cotton Docks.
Sidney R. Johnston wrote his numbers in a book.
While the trains for Jacob Elsas's mill rumbled underneath me.
I felt the tremor right through my stone.
Bales of white gold, stacked to the bone.
I heard whispers from the mill, a mile south.
Something about dignity. A fight.
Nineteen-fourteen. A different kind of weight.

My windows have watched a hundred years unspool.
My timber frame holds the echo of every tool.
I don't judge. I don't forget. I just contain.
The sweat, the dust, the sun, the rain.
I am the witness at 691.

The rumble faded. The iron veins went cold.
The freight cars fell silent. A story told.
Now the sound is lighter. Wheels on a paved trail.
And the street signs changed. They honored a new name.
John Wesley Dobbs.
I watched them put the sign up.
Just another layer. Just another day.

The silence inside me now is different.
It's the hum of a laptop. The click of a key.
They call this place Alkaloid.
They drink coffee where the cotton bales were piled high.
They weave their futures from light and wire.
In the quiet, I can still smell the fire
of the old forges, the ghost of the grain.

They think I am just shelter. Just brick and beam.
But I am the ledger. I am the dream.
I was here for the flour.
I was here for the thread.
I'll be here when their quiet work is said.
I remain.