The Noble Plan

"Make no little plans."
         ~ attributed to Daniel H. Burnham


Like most everything else, it began
as a kind of dream. But grand, both

in scale and purpose. Each instance 
toward the manifestation of the dream 

became practice, a testing of principles 
first laid out on drafting paper, to bring
 
a sense of imperial order to the new colony 
in the East. Outward from the core of government

and the hub for commerce, a network of radiating
grids laid upon the wilderness. Here, the air

was bracing and fragranced with pine: a tonic
for those languishing in the provinces' 

tropical heat and malarial fevers. After 
the roads, a sanatorium was built on a hill: 

as charming as any in Simla or the Swiss alps, 
promising rest and recovery for the tubercular; 

fresh food and sunlight. A City Beautiful, 
whose monuments and buildings were scaffolds 

for ideals of civic and moral virtue— whose site,
cleansed of unsightly elements, would support survival,  

beckon trade, arrange functions for urban refinement and
aesthetics. An eye for immediate defense and a long future.