The Hanging Gardens

Once, they were called
a wonder of the world —
gardens suspended
above the desert, 

the green heart of Babylon.
Never mind that they
did not belong, that they took 
unimaginable labor

to build and maintain,
immeasurable resources
to feed and water; never mind
that what they were

did not belong there.  
They amazed all until
they fell to ruin,
dried out and blew away.

I think of them here in the skyscraper
where a man is speaking of deals
and leverage, thirty stories
above a garden of blue tarps

and varicolored tents full
of those who worked once
to make the country bloom.
It’s the only color in the autumnal city

today, a firefest
of inchoate rage
at the care and feeding
of unnatural wonders.  

However many centuries have intervened
between the arrogant heartbeat of old Babylon
and this equal arrogance of ours,
it has not been enough time

to change the likely result.