Poem: Bible Stories 3/Babylon and the unfinished tower

Babylon and the unfinished Tower of Babel

1
The ark stopped bobbing and settled in the mud
Earth began her long drying
Noah popped the hatch

And the animals charged out of the ark
Behind Noah's wife sons and daughters-in-law
Earth began to fill once more

The begetting began again and the earth blossomed
With Noah's grandchildren and the birds and beasts
(The Bible doesn’t mention what became of the fish)


2
The corner of the world
Near the Tigris and Euphrates filled with people
But none crossed the eastern mountains

Or the desert to the west
The great world beyond was without people
After the flood families sought new homes

A group of people who wanted to serve God
Decided to build a city to rule all people
From bricks with walls of stone

3
The people said let us build a tower
Reaching to the sky so we stand as one
And not scatter across the earth

So they built a great tower from bricks
One story rising above another
But God did not want people all living together

If they stayed together
The wicked would lead the good
Into evil and away from their God

4
God began to change their language
So families and tribes by degrees all spoke
In different tongues now

Families and tribes stayed together
The men building the great tower
No longer knew each other's speech

And abandoned the tower for the faraway lands
Nineveh Assyria Egypt Sidon and Tyre
And the earth had many people in many lands
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