Ambrose Ambles

The Tower.

The Tower.

He fell,

As mighty edifices do fall,

And death made a mockery of him,

As it makes mockery of us all.

But I was just a child of Shinar,

On the plain where The Tower was built.

Bored with a sedentary life,

They hungered for something to adore.

It sprung from the soil a shimmering phallal,

Upon it they lavished their skills

And they named it Babel.

Oh, how it climbed toward the heavens!

While we fed off the spoils of Mother Earth,

The fruits and wines that gave us birth

With n’aer a thought of impending death,

So was the pride full in our hearts.

I asked of my Father, a mason there,

“What the reason for The Tower?”

“In your wildest dreams” he said “you will not want,

And in your steps you will not falter,

We have built and paved a path to heaven,

We have gilded mankind’s altar.

Precious stones from far Afghanistan,

Quoins of coloured marbles of Kazakhstan

Pearls from the depths of The Euxine Sea,

Onyx and alabaster barged down the Nile,

These riches have we brought to thee!

Heaven is our gate, Hell below our feet,

We stand poised to challenge the Gods

Never more to yield to a defeat.”

I was a child of Shinar when the Tower they built,

And never was there a more united cry,

A more singular and determined voice,

“Babel!” they cried, “Babel! You are ours!”,

Voices like sea-waves crashing eternal upon a beach.

And they built onwards and upwards that mighty tower,

The riches of the Earth they did devour,

With no thought of rest…nor honour,

We poured all into that mighty edifice.

Our leaders, as toward heaven it thrust,

They called down to us, encouraged us,

“This is of you” they softly called.

“This is by you” they softly persuaded.

“This is for you” they softly whispered.

And that triple reassurance won us,

And we worked and laboured for that goal,

“Babel, Babel!” we cried and we worshipped the ideal,

And we never wondered when our own plates went empty

Why some others were always filled,

Why THEY were able to lavish aplenty,

While our plains and wells went dry….

Then it fell.

As soft as a tremor, violent as a quake,

It fell because of one small mistake.

It fell when we suddenly came to see,

After climbing, climbing so high in that ecstasy,

Those Gods whose heaven we were calling home,

Were neither singular..nor divine,

But were a made creation of our own!

WE made the Gods of OUR own image,

NOT the Gods of us!

WE made heaven of OUR own wants and desires,

Our leaders fed us of our own language,

And fanned and fuelled our tangled runes,

Spoke in riddles of strange but familiar sounds,

Until we could no more understand their tongue,

And then we saw..our work there was done.

We cast away our tools,

Cursed each other as fools,

And wept….

“Oh Babel, Babel..why has thou forsaken us”.

But too late..too late..it is gone, it is bust..

Babel, our hopes, our dreams, our lusts,

Babel, our creation, our immortal soul,

Has but gone to dust….

We were children of Shinar when first The Tower was built,

We are adults now…awash in a sea of guilt.