Lichen Library

In the quarry’s hush, a staircase of shale keeps its own weather, a slow green alphabet written by rain and patient light. I press my palm to the cool, and the rock listens.

A moth drifts through the shafted sun, paper-thin, carrying dusk in its wings; it touches the lichen as if turning a page, and lifts off with a story it never tells.

Somewhere below, the springs rehearse their silver phrases, rehearsing and forgetting; each seep is a mouth that names the day, then closes around the name.

I leave with grit in my cuffs and a bright, wet silence, as if I borrowed a book that borrows me back, the cover closing, the quarry breathing out.