Babels / by Brian Kunde

Babels
by Brian Kunde

We build our Babels too,
Yet no tongues are scrambled.
Scattered from Shinar
We learned naught,
Only taught each other
Different ways to rise.
New tongues but show
New viewpoints, modes
Of seeing, of bending
Creation.

Held down in one place,
We spill forth in another,
Slip through the fingers—
No warning lasts
Beyond its age of thunder;
For ours are mortal ears,
And caution dies
With those cautioned.
Ambition remains
Immortal.

He has wearied of reprimand,
Discipline abandoned—
Useless tools, and blunt.
The towers now far outrise
That on Shinar’s plain,
And our barbs outfly
The very world’s pull,
Sting that cold white Eye
That ever sees, and slowly
Winks.

Now, we too are gods—
Falling stars, immortal
In the moment—
Passing our light in relays
Down to children ever prouder,
Higher—falling in their turn.
No need to seek beyond.
If we are our own gods,
We are, too, our own check—
Our own demons.

One builds—another sees,
Envies, casts down—
Our arching flights, ablaze
In bright dreams, die
Dark awakenings.
What need we, for good or ill,
Of the old gods?
With we ourselves
Our uplifters—
Our downcasters?

In the dream of this year,
The Eye bore a Babel
Not of our making,
To draw us yet further
Up, yet further out.
Awake, we find our monoliths
Not on Moon, but Earth—
And slapped down
By demons
With human faces.

* * * * *

Babels

from Samizdat : poems, 1st ed., Dec. 2001.

1st web edition posted 7/1/2002.
This page last updated 8/6/2010.