Weathering the Museum of Light

In the atrium of morning, the glass remembers rain, small beads rehearsing a language of departure. I walk beneath them, a guest in the museum of light, where every pane is a shallow lake.

A draft moves the banners, late flags of a season that has no country, only temperature. Outside, the city leans into its coat of gray, and the horizon is a slow violin.

I think of the hands that built this quiet out of patience and steel, of the day they watched sun spill across the floor like loose coins. Even the dust learns to shimmer.

Toward evening, the clouds unlace themselves. The river gathers the last rehearsal of gold, and I carry it home in my sleeves, as if warmth were a borrowed instrument.