The Observatory Under Vines

At the hill's shoulder, the old dome opens like an eyelid of rust. I climb through fern and broken glass; rain keeps time on copper. Inside, dust turns slowly in the beam of my flashlight, as if the room still believes in planets.

Moss has stitched green constellations across the control panels, buttons soft as river stones beneath my thumb. A fox leaves prints in the chalk of fallen plaster, and the night enters in careful, animal breaths.

I set my ear to the telescope tube, cold as a well, and hear the valley hum with trains and hidden water. Stars arrive late, one by one, like names remembered, their light brushing the rafters before it finds my face.

When I leave, dawn is a thin gold wire on the fields. The dome behind me clicks shut in the warming air. Vines hold the building the way memory holds a song: not to preserve it, but to keep it moving.