Towers Over Tombs

I wrote this poem in 2020, while working as a nurse in New York City during the COVID pandemic. One day, while on a bus, I had an impressive view of the skyline of the city in the distance, with a graveyard in the foreground, which inspired these verses.

When humankind assigned his earthly view
To gaze above, and as a child outgrew
The simpler ways of older times and days – 
Then every notion quick became a craze:
To raise the highest marvels, or to peak
Above the earthly bound, with new technique:
To build such works as never had been wrought,
And change this world in ways they’d never thought.
Then bright success crowned every mortal plan:
The limits burst, which bound the mortal man.
And wonders never dreamed were brought to view,
And mankind found a pow’r he never knew – 
To form and shape this world to human ends,
As nature’s reign to human striving bends.
Now fancies rise within the hazy view:
The height of tow’rs pierce the distant blue,
And spires of glass, and shards of distant gray,
Surmount the sky, the level plains array.
Impressive plaque, to human work and will –
The crowning gem of architec’tral skill!
The ancient Babel raised to modern heights
Whose massive form, astonished cries incites.
Such structures raised by human might and pride
Make men forget they have a mortal side –
That, destined for the grave, his plans forgot,
The tow’rs remain, but never give him thought – 
And all the works that human hands assume
Are built to stand in silence o’er his tomb.

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