At the Decommissioned Observatory

The hill keeps its old instrument lifted to weather. Inside, the dome smells of iron rain and cedar dust. A cracked lens holds a pale afternoon like a coin, while swallows stitch black arcs through the open slit.

I turn the rusted wheel; the sky arrives in fragments. Clouds drift across the glass like slow herds over water. Somewhere below, the town rings its dishes and traffic, but up here every sound is a moth beating velvet.

Names once written in chalk have softened into frost. Equations bloom and fade on the wall with each damp season. Moss climbs the stairs, patient as a librarian, filing moonlight between the teeth of broken gears.

Night enters early, carrying a blue electric hush. The first star strikes, then another, then a field of sparks. I do not ask for answers; I stand in their weather, and let the dark tune me like a wooden instrument.