Mesopotamian Yonge

My vantage offers much admired
Greens, and blues to catch the breath
Of denizens who long aspired,
Cast in greys, to conquer death

By raising in immortal stone
That clads a hidden heart of steel
A skeleton of bedrock bone
Enamel marble at its heel

Not legs: a backbone, shown all
A broken spine pressed to the sky
That presages a giant’s fall
That was not born, so cannot die

But only fade, reduced to lurk
When twilight brings the gleam to murk.