Judge’s comments: Fine treatment of the biblical account.

In the prosperity of words, you ask
for certainty; all I’ve got is what I heard
from people who heard it
from others. There’s an old story

about a tower to heaven
that everyone worked on but no one
finished. Say you and I spent
all our time, money, thought and strength

to finish it, only to find a god
who doesn’t speak or understand
our language, whose words
we can’t begin to interpret! What goes up

must come down. That’s the law.
What if what goes up had come down
first? Jacob got so tired once,
the story goes, he laid his head

on rock, and in his dream,
there it was, the full tower, top
to bottom. You need proof
you say; for proof I give you my own

need for proof. There’s an end
to argument, when the defense rests
and tongues become still, a silence
you just can’t break.