The Ivory Tower

This poem was written in response to the Rattle® Poetry Ekphrastic Challenge for October 2024 and was ultimately not selected. You can find more information here.

https://www.rattle.com/ekphrastic/

The Ivory Tower

Beacon shimmering in the sun

Where the seekers of the truth and the keepers of the knowledge

Have sequestered themselves away

Taken by the beckoning of a higher understanding

And from their pedestal of alabaster stone

They look down on the ground and those that walk below

The stench of the unwashed masses

Unclean with their ignorance

For why believe in God as the lowly dwellers do

When one can touch God, be God, with all that is known

Here at the stronghold of intellect

A promise to attain the esoteric comprehension

Required to open the mind and set it free

From the encumbrance of the everyday

And you will be distinguished from the common man

Because you will have achieved all that you can be

If you would only follow them

But what they do not tell you is

How blinding be the light of knowledge

And that there is contentment

In the menial toil of the ordinary life

A happiness to be found in the oblivious

For the truth they promise to teach you

Is a burden that, if picked up,

Can never be set down

It must be carried the rest of your life

For once you have ascended the steps of the Ivory Tower

You can only yearn to walk on the ground again

Submitted under MRB