Challenging Poetry

Singapore: Gardens by the Bay

the trees died,
their roots exposed
and mulched
and turned into apartment
buildings and shops
and wires to connect
everything together,
so we built a garden—
with flowers and bridges
and a roof to hide
the mountain we built
and trees. they stand tall,
the trees we built,
overgrown with moss
and sometimes, they
lift their branches
to spray the garden.

Author's Note ▼

I thought I would write about pirates, but in my research, the thing that really caught my attention was the Gardens by the Bay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_by_the_Bay which are a masterpiece of engineering that I would love to go visit someday. The thing that really stood out at me were the supertrees, which are manmade structures that look like trees and preform some of their functions (like shade and regulating the temperature of their environment as well as providing a habitat for plants) but they look so sci fi and building trees seems to be such a complicated thing to do. So, I'm not sure what I think about them except they're interesting. Also, one of the gardens is a building with a climate controlled mountain. Which is also wonderful and strange and complicated in my head.