The tower of clamour and

Hard bricks rose
Too high that you
Stopped it.  Our voices were
Denied us, our
Cloven tongues split
And spread
Until your word was
Unintelligible
To our own ears.
We are making things, the way
You created us -
Our minds will take us
Further, higher, than this
Grounded tower - we will
Reach for the
Forever we can
See in our night sky.
We will travel far
In your body and
Destroy as we go.
To take our knowing speech
Was a stroke
Of genius.  It meant
That we must
Strive towards our
Diverse cultures and our tongues
Our different eyes and skins
And know them for our own.
This thinking, coalescing
Life is a Babel 
Borne on our own
Backs - we speak
And do not hear, we
See and fail to
Understand.  A divisive
Thing you did that
Day at the Ziggurat.
But we will prove your
Will is sound, your stroke was true.
We will climb and clasp
Each other's hands,
Put brick to brick
Until the tower is
Perfect, and as we
Gaze at you from
Our high far tor -
The very point of it -
The last brick
Is bricked in place
With our shared
Mortar, we will speak
Ourselves as we were
First made, see
The circle we have come
The ladder we have climbed
To find the one pure tongue
We have forged
And were denied
And know it was
All built to be so
Planned and sound, so
Renewed in rotation
That it cannot help
But split the root again -

The one tongue cleaves
Is babbling.

previous poem