At the Observatory After Rain

At dusk the hill exhales wet iron, the observatory dome unbuttons one cloud at a time, ferns climb the stairs like patient green fire, and water drips a metronome through cracked concrete.

Inside, the telescope sleeps on its rusted hinge, its long throat still tasting Saturn's vanished ringlight; swallows stitch dark arcs where charts once hung, their wings brushing chalk dust into brief weather.

I set my palm on the cold brass wheel and hear a choir of tiny gears remember motion, as if the room were tuning itself to a distant station where dead stars keep broadcasting their blue vowels.

Night arrives in slow, silver paragraphs. Moss brightens the walls with a submarine glow. I leave the door ajar for whatever is still listening, and the hill keeps turning, enormous and kind.