Greenhouse in the Observatory

At the hilltop observatory, glass is relearning light. Fern spores float where star charts once curled in drawers. The great brass telescope holds a sleeve of ivy, pointed now at morning, not the old cold constellations.

Rain taps the dome like fingers on a muted piano. Each drop wakes a seed lodged in a seam of rust. Lizards sun themselves on the azimuth ring, small green metronomes keeping time with clouds.

I come at dusk with a bucket and a lantern, and the room smells of pepper leaves and wet iron. Planets rise beyond the cracked slit in the roof, while tomatoes glow like low red moons in their vines.

Nothing here is lost, only translated: dust into soil, silence into wings. Night opens its dark score above the glass, and every leaf turns, listening, to the stars.