Municipal Seed Library at Dawn

In the municipal seed library, the drawers breathe cedar. Beans sleep in paper envelopes, each one stamped with a county, a summer, the hand that spared it. Outside, the rain keeps testing the windows with small coins.

A woman returns the moonflower she never planted, its packet folded like a letter from a future she could not keep. The clerk slides it into darkness where dill, sorrel, and scarlet runner are learning names.

At night the building cools to the patience of soil. The vents whisper over the shelves like weather that has forgotten its country. Somewhere under the floor, roots are rehearsing a language of pressure and thirst.

When dawn arrives, it arrives as if crossing a field: one pale blade, then another, then the whole roof lifting with light. The drawers remain closed, yet everything inside has already begun.