Toward What?

Toward what do we aspire,
Striving higher, higher,
Like smoke from fire?

The great tower looms a thousand stories high,
Its gruesome steel pierces the wounded sky,
And nature feels humanity's gone awry.

Vacant itinerant ghosts flit past,
Their ambition not built to last,
Wandering, wandering inside their caste.

Toward what do we aspire,
Striving higher, higher,
Like smoke from fire?

We merely roam,
Burning with want,
Our faces gaunt,
In our familiar haunts,
But never at home.