Tower of Babel

Forsaken are we among the lands of earth
With language not to speak our tongues
Which can be heard abroad as in our homelands

And from the forests of our thoughts
We cannot see a foreign smile
We cannot forge a foreign reign
Without imposing of our style

We must attain from eating bread
Sufficient strength to break ahead
And all among the lands of earth
A thousand different prose are heard

A river of a thousand voices
As said Siddhartha in his bode
We read the dharma in translation
Says only listening one can learn

And all the bricks upon our heads
The weight of peoples and their soils
To find a way to understand
Is not of less to work and toil

For all our listening to foreign ways
Turning hours into days
We build a bridge beyond our kind
And open new our ancient mind

From whence the oldest sound became
A thousand names for everything
Countless words whose meanings differ
Codes we brand into our thinking
The womb from which universal birth gave rise to million voices hither

For every sibling has his quarrel
And every parent has his qualm
Every person has a story
In their mind or on their arm

But speeches do not lay us still
Nor in our sleeping cottage settle
The endless chatter in a void
When life to you is just a riddle

You're all alone
All alone when you go
So you might as well
Know me well
Like a song
Might as well
Know me well