Windbreak of Antennas

At the salt-flat edge, dishes tilt like pale moons, a field of listening flowers, their stems in steel. Heat shimmers a second sky, and the horizon leans in to eavesdrop.

Technicians move through the hum, soft-footed, carrying thermoses, a ladder, a small wrench. They speak in gestures to keep the silence intact, as if sound might startle a distant wave.

Night drains its ink into the bowls. A pulse arrives from somewhere older than weather, and the sand, for a moment, seems to breathe as if remembering an ancient tide.

We stand between the transmitted and the received, palms open, not catching but consenting. The wind writes its quick script across our sleeves, and we read it by how it disappears.