Moss in the Observatory

At the hill’s crown, the observatory keeps its white dome like a cracked knuckle in rain. Inside, dust turns in the shafted light as if old constellations are still being ground.

Fern tongues unroll through the tile seams, green syllables spelling over forgotten equations. A spider draws a slow meridian between the brass eyepiece and the dark.

Night arrives carrying wet cedar and distant trains; the roof opens with a sigh of rust. No astronomer comes, yet Orion leans close, his belt bright as buttons on a coat left behind.

By morning, dew beads on the lenses, each drop a small, trembling planet. The sky is not owned, only borrowed by seeing; moss knows this, and keeps climbing.