Seed Vault at Dawn

At dawn the seed vault exhales cold iron, racks of sleeping summers humming in the dark, each packet a folded weather, a field reduced to the weight of breath.

Outside, April rain combs the basalt hill, moss drinks the names rubbed off old labels, and crows stitch black thread through the mist as if mending a torn map of harvests.

I hold one grain against the window light; inside it, a river rehearses its shining, bees orbit a clover not yet born, children run between rows of future corn.

When evening locks the steel behind me, my hands still smell of paper, dust, and rain. The planet turns like a careful gardener, covering each buried promise with night.