Lizards, snails, birds, and *****,
tobacco plants,
thornapples, obscure types of
buttercup.
Pinecones, arrowroot,
the more striking moments
of fossil remains,
foreign fish and normal bugs,
a terracotta monkey.

We took the things that matter,
gilded them in squares,
glassed them astride.
We enshrined your lazy gardens
in a temple on the cheap,
reminded you to
visit,
to look up
at the world around
above.