Previous age, like God. The reason
For wanting to reach heaven is
Forgotten, yet the walls grow tall.
The materials determine the outcome.
Though we can see each other through
The glass, our words are muffled.
We have to fabricate the story, change
The "I said" and "you said" to "once
Upon a time, in the land of Shinar."
Maybe Ciardi was not such a fool
When he said that you cannot become
A poet in a language that is not
Your mother tongue. Maybe he wasn't
Discussing Latin, Hebrew or Russian.
Maybe he was talking about the need
For the simple language we spoke
As children, the one we use, or do not
Need to use, when we lie next to
Each other, spelling the word
home–
And admitting that a discourse like
This is not necessarily a poem.
It
is just the babble of someone who
Does not want to get lost in Babel,
When the only certainty regarding
The future of the flesh is its lack
Of future, someone who thinks that
The burning of the books should be
In
the Alexandrian fire of the spirit,
Where human histories can be housed,
Reaching, or not reaching, to heaven.
