Week XXII: Babel, Pt. 2 - Made Flesh

Stepping into rising sun
And burning in the face of God
They held their course and ventured forth
To spread the word upon the earth

Behold the light and plant a seed
A lineage from which to spring
With hands like dust of pages swept
To lift the branches from the dirt

Cast your gaze and see the makers
Bursting forth as blossoms follow fire
The echo of creation's voice
A choir awakened, breathing

The words made flesh with shaking steps

Obeyed the mouths of animates

And rolled about the palates, lips

Suffusing symbols with consonance

Infused with blood and welling up
With tears borne of a fallen soul
The words found characters inside
And wept for ink to please the scribes

The writers of the book of life
Beheld the words beyond the veil
Beyond the reach of muting hands
Their incantations rose aloft

And so above, as below
The book was blackened with their speech
The stain eternal, carnal sin
They carried in their mouths

Accepting stress and accents
Indelible marks upon their flesh
That they might be remarkable
For swallowing their flight from God

As grapes fermented, words were pressed
A nobler nectar to impart
The flavour of its art, its timbre
Their lips caressing every letter

Each one fruit upon their tongues
Succulent resonant lingual bliss
Their voices bringing forth new life
Labial instruments giving birth

Come hearken to the maiden voices
First to carry forth a song
To cast a seal in living wax
And repossess creation's mantle

Tilling blood into the soil

The words bore fruit and multiplied
That though to dust they would return
The reaper would refuse their urn

Behold the words, transcend the flesh
Enmeshed within divinity
And transience, a melody
The chorus swelling from the ground

In generations, pure in thought
And practiced in the art they knew
Began to unify the minds
Of all who sang and praised the word

The time has come to build anew
A beacon to the word within
The power held in chanting voices
Edifice to language blessed

Though mortal vessels, anagrams
Of life and death in human clay
They sought to take upon themselves
The power that the words command

With toiling hands and tongues to guide
The greatest arts they now possessed
The skyward spire began its climb
The cornerstone their words inscribed