Instructions for Growing Moss on a Radio Tower

At dawn the transmission mast sweats silver, fog threads its ribs like unspooled cassette tape, pigeons wait on the crossbeams as if tuning a station older than weather.

I carry a bucket of rainwater up the service stairs, knees ringing against steel, pockets full of seed. Between bolts and warning labels small green tongues begin pronouncing the wind.

By August the tower wears a soft map, moss lit like constellations under sodium lamps; night buses below drag their red commas, and the city listens without admitting it.

When storms arrive, lightning reads the whole structure aloud. Every wire hums with chlorophyll and static. We call it maintenance, but it is prayer: teaching metal to remember it was once ore.