The After-Ring

The bronze rim still shivers, a circle of ghosts expanding through the rafters. The strike was a collision of light, now fading into the grain of the cedar beams.

It is the sound of heavy water, rippling toward the edges of the valley. A low hum that anchors the morning, holding the mist against the mountainside.

We listen to what is no longer there, the hollow space where the iron met the skin. The silence that follows is not empty; it is a held breath, a weighted grace.