Calibration of Echo

My boots stepped onto the rusted iron grid beneath the massive dish. In the heat of the midday sun, the silent steel needed a pulse. I found a loose galvanized coupling pin on the maintenance platform and gripped its weathered shaft. With deliberate cadence, I struck the hollow lattice truss once, twice, holding my left arm extended in a rigid lock to read the counter-resonance. The metal sang back in high, sharp frequencies. I shifted my weight into a clean ninety-degree pivot, letting each strike define the measure. A performer does not wait for music; he pulls the rhythm directly out of the architecture.