Babel

Kathleen Housley

Let us build ourselves a city, with a tower
that reaches to the heavens, so that we may
make a name for ourselves and not be scattered
over the face of the whole earth.
—Genesis 11:4

The demolition blast was so intense
it blew away their common tongue.

Across the plain of Shinar,
parts of speech shrapneled the ground.

Syntax rained down like gobs of tar.
Nouns whirled in vortices of brick dust.

Mute, the people stood owl-eyed
in a heavy ash-fall of vowels,

shielding themselves from verbs
that ricocheted through the hush,

while spores of language settled
on their hair—Algonquian, Basque,

Belarusian, Maori, Tamil, Aleut—
and sprouted into an unspoken longing

for empty homelands only distant offspring
would reach via land bridge or reed boat,

borne by a shockwave of syllables

and a hunger for a name older than words.

Visit Kathleen Housley as Image Artist of the Month for November '07

Issue #45 • Spring 2005