Towers

           Great towers of strife

           Big blooming edifices

sprout from our minds to the firmament;
    The vague soil of prosperity has
     uplifted our cries and prayers to
        boundless cerulean canvas

Skyward and skyward and skyward
they climb, our great odes to the sky or
Pillars to the celestial
    poking the velvet tapestry like
a thousand curious fingers
    prodding, feeling (What is up there?)

Skeletons long standing,
Transcending the treetops
                    Long after I'm gone,
            My hollow Babel will stand,
            A witness to the past
            A crumbling elder to the memory
                Of its creator (If nothing else I interrupted
                                          the horizon's steady stream)

The towers are our pedestals
They are our telescopes
and lightning rods,
                        our
                  unfinished
               ladders to
            the great
          ceiling

Climb climb climb!
Let the tower take my feet off the
Stubborn, unforgiving ground
                      Or, if not my feet,
                      My stature in
              the hearts of the multitudes

     (If nothing else I interrupted the horizon)