The ziggurat in Larsa

The massive ziggurat in Larsa:
steps on steps on steps on steps.
It takes many hours
to get to the top.

Yet there are always people
eager to climb up,
queuing at the gates:
old men, children, even slaves.

There is always a caterpillar
of heads and arms and legs
crawling up the ziggurat,
along its jagged edge.

All seem to have one desire –
to reach the top and then
to keep ascending higher,
into the dales of heaven.

However, those who make it
to the final steps
see only the azure slate
hanging above their heads.

Forced to stop
and loath to go back at once,
some leave on it the imprints
of their dirty hands;

some, who can do so, write
their names in clumsy cunei:
no more does this azure slate
look like a piece of the sky,

but like rippling chaos,
layers of handprints and names
becoming denser and denser
as the years lapse.

Many people clamber,
hoping to get through,
and many – to be sure
that others have failed, too.

Maybe someone believes
the slate will crack, worn out,
that these repeated failures
must bring some result.

And there may be someone who climbs
to inspect it closely, for then
he might spot some handprints or names
too beautiful to be human.