Sonnet #38

Who looked upon the bitter sand between
the rivers and said, this the place where palaces
of men will rise to scratch the cloudy places?
I think not one but many had this dream
Every brick was an imagining by one
Upon another, all dreaming together
The houses almost made, accept each other
in the shadows of what was decided, done
At night, when buildings' shadows stretch
like cemetery plots below the tombs
the shadows of what could have been come
through, just a little. The people stitch
The spirit of a town out of the ghosts
Of what was almost made and what was lost