Babel

Brick by brick,
step by step,
day by day,
see them working
far out across the shifting sands.

See them walk out early with the dawn,
laughing anxiously
and scribbling notes no eyes could read.
Faceless, they speak little.
This is no place for human voices.
Here in the baking sunlight,
here in the original void,
here in the place where dream meets stone
and visions wander the earth,
harsh winds dissolve the human voices.

Still it rises, brick by brick.
It will reach heaven someday.
Tacit religion, their unspoken creed.
"A better world for our children," they say.
Sand is a cruel mistress,
now too hard, now too yielding.
Skeletons of failure,
ribs of steel and teeth of stone
stretch out to the hazy horizon.
Rise so high, they know,
and you court your own collapse.
But they are proud.
Better to fall to ruin
than never leave the ground.
It rises brick by brick.

(Photo credit: "Easter trip to Dubai (9 of 102).jpg" from Tue S. Dissing on Flickr)

Check out The Giggling Stream on Facebook!