Illustration by Blair Thornley

Imagine, under the wonder-working icon
By the potted palm in the famous architect's

Solarium, a collection of silicon chips contains --
Besides meteorological models of the global CO2

Gradient plotted against rain forest incineration -- plans
For Joseph Paxton’s incredible Crystal Palace:

Crown of the age, apogee of Victorian nerve
And dream. It's 1854: its soaring nave

Contains 300,000 hand-cut panes! -- containing:
Cogs; gears; engineering grandeurs; continent-

Spanners, their pressure-gauges outgassing; Gondwanan
Fauna never before seen on earth; a one-

Hundred-and-eight-foot elm swathed in a steam sarong,
And a watchwork orrery containing heaven wrong.