The Observatory Keeps Breathing

The hill remembers when it had a staircase, now the grass climbs by itself, a soft animal. Windows hold their broken mouths open, waiting for the old constellations to return.

Inside, dust unspools like a second galaxy, each mote a slow orbit in a thin beam. The brass of the telescope is greened by rain, still tasting the salt of distant stars.

A clock on the wall has forgotten numbers, its hands suspended as if listening. Silence is not empty here; it is a patient fog, breathing through the cracked dome.

Night falls the way a curtain settles, not an ending but a gentle weight. Somewhere beyond the ruin, light keeps arriving, and the building, though roofless, keeps it.