Journey from Babylon

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Ziggurat star-gazers descend
Stepping down tiered balconies
Leaving Babylon's babble
Scattered in a thousand tongues
Of understanding lost forever
In the tower that searched the heavens.[1]
 
Flummoxed by another mysteryalt
Script on Belshazzar's wall
Unintelligibly back to front [2]
Moving with the immovable sun
Down the processional way
Of lions facing the dawn. [3]
 
Taking the exiles' track [4]
Following a milky way
While avoiding a silk route [5]
Getting straight to the point
Without sextant or compass
Just longing to find the truth.
 
Bearers of an open secret
Searchers for fuller meaning
In a dozen signs[6] condensed
From a thousand stars in convergence
Focused on the babe of Bethlehem
As the king of heaven descends.[7]
 
Angels that gave lions lockjaw [8]
Stir animal voices
To the baying and bleating of adoration
That is language without words
Welcoming new arrivals
With nature's hymn of praise.
 
February 2009

After visiting the British Museum exhibition: Babylon.

Since the city was destroyed in the second century BC, the journey of the Magi from Babylon occurs only in the writer's imagination.
 

[1] The story of the Tower of Babel - Genesis:11
[2] The story of the writing on the wall - Daniel 5
[3] The lions in the Processional Way leading up to the Ishtar Gate
[4] The Jews, exiled to Babylon in 586BC returned to Jerusalem after 537BC. Ezra 2:1-3
[5] The Silk Road - crossed north of Babylon.
[6] Signs of the Zodiac were developed in Babylon; meaning 'circle of animals' or 'the path' (of the sun)
[7] John 1: 14
[8] The story of Daniel in the den of lions - Daniel 6