Babel

Babel

Zach Washburn

Proclaimed! I’ll shape the soil from which I came
I’ll make muddy prisms, each one the same
I’ll reform wild earth, I’ll render it tame
Upon each facet, I’ll inflame my name.

Behold! I’ll pack clay into my own mold-
Orthogonal, and with proportions gold
By hundred and thousand I’ll see them sold
I’ll pile up profits, and glories, untold.

From unimagined height, the hammer falls
In rhythmic mockery the gavel calls
The pulse-pounding chisel resounding rings
Celestial hands unearth long hidden things
Then wedge willing hearts into dry-stack walls
Until, at last: the lithic choir sings.

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Zach Washburn
Poet & Pastor

Zach is husband to Vanessa, father to a passel of children, and pastor to Calvin Church in Corvallis, Oregon. He inherited his reverence for words from both parents, and has been worshipping the Word since he first read the gospels as a teenager.

Photography by Nicholas Explorer