The Silent Orbit

The dust settles in the hollows of the crater, a quiet settling that has known no wind for ten million years of turning. Shadows stretch like bruised fingers across the chalk-white plains of the moon.

Here is the geography of absence, where light is harsh and darkness is absolute, and the only tide is the slow pull of the heavy blue marble hanging in the black.

I trace the ridges of ancient impacts, feeling the deep, cold scars of the silent stone. Time is measured not by breath or fading suns, but by the gentle rain of infinitesimal stars falling into the endless, waiting dust.