Atlas of Quiet Fires

The hillside keeps its own calendar of sparks, lichen-glow on stones where last summer hid. At dusk the air tastes of iron and thyme, and the crickets wind their dark machinery.

A beekeeper leaves an empty hive on the porch, wood softened by rain, by the slow grammar of sun. Inside, a few wings still glitter like coins, and the silence is thick enough to comb.

Down in the valley, the train yard sleeps, rails braided with grasses that hum at touch. A stray dog reads the tracks like a long sentence, punctuation of puddles, commas of rust.

Night opens its pockets and everything changes: fireflies rise, a brief constellation of work. We count them, not for luck but for proof that even small lights make a map home.