All That Glitters Is Not Byzantium

                                               Mohenjo-daro


all that glitters is not Byzantium,
all that gleams is not El Dorado
awaken, dead cities!
arise from your deserts,
your plains,
your jungles,
your steppes,
your marshes,
your mountains
and display the thin shadows
of your once-great superfluousness!
aye, not such as once
was Samarkand or Bukhara
or Khorsabad or Persepolis
or Khan-balik or Isfahan
but murmur greatness
e'en in their crumbling.

nameless, faceless, resurrected
cities,
return,
breathe now again for us
breathe and live,
live now and forever
until the very end
of Time.


DB/c1998.2016