The Rust of Hours

The pendulum slows its bronze arc, a heartbeat thick with dust in the hall of forgotten inheritances.

Motes dance in the fractured light, tiny planets spinning through a quiet galaxy where voices have long retreated into the wood grain.

Even the silver mirror has clouded over, refusing to hold the shape of the afternoon, preferring the soft blur of a life unmeasured.

We leave only echoes and scuff marks, the faint, persistent smell of old lavender, and the silent machinery of the years.