Sonnet #290

At evening twilight, walking, I must wonder how 

much of all the grass I see is living, how much a ghost

We do not seek the ghosts of tiny things, no spectral host

Made up of mayflies, tree stumps, blades of grass, flow

of ancient rivers dwindling underground, but the memory

of cities, the echo of that energy, rises greater than man

from space, we see the oldest roads in desert sands 

We see the outline of the walls of other centuries

empires lost to stories, I question whether houses

of all I see, if they have not more than this burned down

And what I see is an illusion of a place, where ghost houses

stand, ghost cities hold a shape in time, and remember how

these things used to be: All the residents are ghosts, all espoused

of their vast kingdoms come from will to remain - illusions, proud