In the heart of the city, little hidden gardens grow where they shouldn’t, high above us on the rooftops of buildings left empty years ago. Their summer up there flows with ours and fades just as fast when the air turns cool.

The tallest plants among them peek over high ledges now and then with help from the wind, but otherwise remain unseen but by a few.

Up on one roof, many stories high, thin tufts of grass grow in little hollows, alongside weeds in clefts the water’s made between stones during winters when it freezes and then melts again and again. The green grasses complement the stone fleurs-de-lis arrayed along the cornice, plants blinking in and out of life each year against the backdrop of permanent blooms formed in stone.

Farther along the roof, a tall tree imitates the building behind it and pushes higher in the sky each year.

The setting sun’s golden light appears to set afire a misplaced field of grass gone brown. Its rays glow within the thin stalks and wispy plumes, which are pointed the river’s way by the slow evening breeze.

These dried stalks would be nothing elsewhere but a patch of weeds, but up this high they are graceful strays from below, a soft contrast to the hard roof.

The workmen who laid tar up here ages ago probably never imagined their work would be left to crumble into a makeshift soil for spreading grasses, sturdy enough to support tall trees.

This tree is tall enough to still catch the last of the evening’s light, which the rest of the roof can’t see because the sun’s dropped too low.

It’s no longer a sapling; it’s now a true tree, with a bushy skirt of leaves ringed around its thick trunk.

It reaches higher each summer, reaching heights unknown to trees on the ground, while at its base it forces its roots like fingers into the tar, cleaving it a dozen ways as it deepens its grip, seeking scarce water.

From within the branches comes the sound of crickets chirping. They, like the seeds of the grass and the trees, somehow made their way up this high.

These birds have made this building their own. Once exemplifying the city’s growth and success, this skyscraper is now reduced to a gravestone for the past that serves mostly as an extravagant pigeon roost.

The weather’s opened a hole in the heavy blocks for them, into which they can dart from their limestone perch when they grow bored with the view.

The birds and bugs and trees own these little rooftop meadows, whose growth each year is a marker of the ongoing failure to rescue this building from its long slumber.