The Greatest Empire I Know Poem by Luce Darwin

Your empire stands taller
than the rest of the world's
most powerful,
yet nobody knows of it's
revolutions and it's disasters,
and nobody sees it's immensity,
and it's rapid enveloping
of the hemispheres.
It reaches into the atmosphere
and pollutes the stars with it's fury.
It hides among the moving shadows
of the people I see
and lives and grows under the soil,
sprouting nettles,
sprouting poison mushrooms,
sprouting wild flowers.
Your battleships are phantoms
in which sailor's stories are born.
It has stood for epoch after epoch,
even before you,
it's great king, was born,
into it's secret fabric
of lake reflections
and winged sounds.
Your empire goes to war
inside my heart
and it's time of rest
is in my eyes.