Midnight Bloom

The city sleeps, a myriad of hushed dreams, but above the quiet rooftops, a different kind of life unfolds. The streetlights, distant stars, cast long, serpentine shadows down empty lanes. A breeze, a lilt of forgotten music, whispers through the highest leaves. Somewhere beyond the familiar haze, the lunar glow fights through, a pale witness to the night's slow turning. I imagine currents of light, a cascade of cosmic dust, like a distant nebula blooming across the vast, dark canvas. And in the deep, unseeing places, the earth breathes, a slow, gentle slither, releasing the faintest scent of damp soil, of something ancient, like faint, lingering phosphorous.