We learned to climb slick ropes of rain
to the towering tops of clouds, but soon
they’ll break our grip on the sky.
We’ll dive in a swirl of water and wind
back down the years we’ve climbed.
None below will catch us but many
will pass us by, they like us learning
how but never why, rising and falling
from their wobbling towers of Babel.
—
Robert S. King, a native Georgian, now lives in Lexington, Kentucky. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Lullwater Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published four chapbooks (When Stars Fall Down as Snow, Garland Press 1976; Dream of the Electric Eel, Wolfsong Publications 1982; The Traveller’s Tale, Whistle Press 1998; and Diary of the Last Person on Earth, Sybaritic Press, 2014). His full‐length collections are The Hunted River and The Gravedigger’s Roots, both in 2nd editions from FutureCycle Press, 2012; One Man’s Profit from Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013; and Developing a Photograph of God from Glass Lyre Press, 2014. Robert’s work has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of Net award. He is editor-in-chief of Kentucky Review.