The Tower of Babel

Steeped in the scrawled
cliches of scripture, I have
doodled myself a tower
rising out of shrubbery.
And soft vanilla clouds
lackadaisically floating by.
My friend muffles a giggle,
thinking I have drawn
a deliberate member
scraping the skies.
But I have drawn only a
tower, a lonely tower of
Babel surrounded not by
a city and its ambitious
builders, but verdant
black, greenery, devoid
of life. And it is in this
isolation that the tower
stands, speaking the
language of the world,
providing stairs to heaven.

My pencil doodle,
charcoaled by sweaty palms
lays there, smudged,
dirty, a tower rising out of
smog. It houses the world;
and sits on a page on my
desk, as I ignore my
theology instructor,
linking morality and religion.