The Observatory in Fernlight

By the hill where the observatory rusts, ferns shoulder open the cracked white dome; rain gathers in the telescope’s blind throat and pours a sky of leaves onto the floor.

Moss writes its green syllables on brass, slow as breath on winter glass. A fox steps through the doorway at dusk, wearing twilight like a soft red lantern.

Inside, the star charts curl like sleeping moths. Wind turns one page, then another, until constellations drift off their pins and settle in the dark among roots.

Night arrives without announcement: a black lake filling the rooms. Somewhere under ivy and iron, one old lens still holds a shard of dawn.