One of the first planned communities in America.
Before the hillside, before the ticky-tacky, Wilder.
Each mill house mirrored the next on a grid plotted
for workers who came to run the Wilder Paper Mill.

They processed logs that floated down the Connecticut
7 days a week, 365 days a year. Transformed wet pulp
into newsprint and shipped it by train whose tracks
followed the river’s path.

They walked the Wilder streets, sent their children
to the Wilder School, read books in the Wilder Library,
and when they felt kicky on a Saturday night,
they went to the Wilder Club.

They built the Wilder Dam and the river rose nine feet
along the shore. The Paper Mill was leveled into a park
where the grass is cut for soccer practice, where children
run with domesticated dogs off their leashes.

Today, the houses are old and crumbling. Unapologetic.
It’s a circuitous future coughing up chipped paint,
dog poop, and weeds in overrun beds. My beds are
raised and still learning how to grow.

I traded a small town in South Dakota for this wilderness.
For a life of adventure to ease my restless spirit. Wilder.
Because it sounds like a name you’d point to on a map.
Wilder. Pistol shots or a wolf’s cry in the night. Wilder.

Nobody tells you how hard it’s going to be.

Listen, here comes the train.