Tower of Babel

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‘The Fall of the Tower of Babel’ by Cornelis Anthonisz (1547)

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How do you show your love for me?
What languages do you speak, my love?
Dare I ask, do we share at least one common dialect?
Can we, please?

How do I show my love for you?

I prefer to wrap you in words:
In bandages, for your pain (or mine?)
In wrapping paper, for the gift that you are
To wrap you is to suffocate you, my darling;
the better to contain my pleasure & pain

I prefer to assign songs to you:
Wind Of Change, to signify hope in troubled times
So Far Away, to show longing through the distance
To speak to you through songs you love;
for better writers to better express what we both feel

I prefer to add disaster to our story:
You washing away in a flood of indifference
Me trapped in an earthquake, trying to reach you
For our love torn apart is a world torn apart;
it is nothing less than catastrophe

Here I am, raw and yearning and bare
Communing with you in the only languages I know
Of metaphors, music, and natural disasters
Is it enough for you?

We are building the Tower of Babel
Destined to reach the heavens and defy deities
Alas, they chose to bestow upon you one tongue
And I another; are we destined to now fall down?

And so I ask you again:

How do you show your love for me?
What languages do you speak, my love?
Dare I ask, do we share at least one common dialect?
Can we, please?

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