A Mistake Rewarded

By Elton Camp

In Italy, bell towers are often found

In many villages and towns all around
From them many an incessant peal
Will call good Catholics in to kneel

Of holy or feast days they do tell

By their relentless, insistent knell
In Middle Ages, to show their power
Cities competed to build the best tower

But why not play a history game

How many of them can you name?
For one who is not of Italy, like me
Only one name of them I can see

To be remembered, all it will take

Is to make some colossal mistake
The builders thought they were able
To build a tower on ground unstable

But to lean is what it started to do

Before its construction was through
But lack of sense the town did betray
Gradually finished the tower anyway

Such mistake should bring shame

But a great asset the tower became
It brought to the town lasting fame
Leaning Tower of Pisa is its name

“Lean, just don’t fall.”