Glass Dome, Green Pulse

At dusk the abandoned observatory exhales rust, its slit-eyed dome half-open to a patient sky. Milkweed lifts through cracked terrazzo like small flares, and dust remembers the weight of planets.

Once, brass gears turned midnight into numbers; now rain taps equations on the control desk. A fox sleeps under the map of constellations, its breath fogging Orion into weather.

Vines climb the telescope in slow calligraphy, wrapping the barrel where comets used to pass. Each leaf is a dark green ear to distant light, listening farther than lenses ever could.

By morning the room is bright with pollen and stars, both kinds drifting, both impossible to hold. I stand in that mingled weather and learn: ruin is only another word for germination.