Greenhouse in the Old Observatory

The dome no longer opens for planets, it lifts instead to a wet breath of basil and rain. Glass ribs hold the dusk like a struck note, and moths drift through it, pale and unafraid.

Once, men waited here for cold distances, for light that left before their grandfathers were born. Now seedlings write their green signatures in trays, small comets bending toward a lamp.

At midnight, condensation pearls along the steel, a patient alphabet the walls keep relearning. I press my sleeve against the fogged pane and find my own outline returned as weather.

By dawn, the tomatoes carry tiny suns, and the floor smells of iron, mint, and earth. Above them, the old telescope sleeps on its cradle, pointed inward, finally naming what is near.