Greenhouse in the Observatory

The dome no longer turns for planets, it opens like a rusted eyelid to rain. Moss climbs the brass gears, patient as scripture, and seedlings tremble in telescope dust.

At noon, light spills through cracked glass ribs, a choir of warmth over shattered star maps. Tomato vines braid themselves around declination rings, green constellations learning a slower sky.

I water by the names of vanished comets, whispering Hale, Encke, ghosts of ice. Each drop strikes metal with a small bell note, as if the room remembers how to listen.

By dusk, the leaves hold their own weather, breathing mist against the old equations. Above them, the slit in the dome keeps widening, not to measure distance, but to let earth in.