Come, little book, companion of lost youth
Well met at Tien Sha in the long ago
A comrade through the days of gasping heat
A comrade through the nights of flare-lit death

And then

A comrade through life’s lingering after-years
That often seemed only a falling away
From that not time which was lost in not time
The fallenness of man and men and time

O little book that steadies the universe
Where are you now – not lost out of not time?



Too much exposition:

At a Pacific Stars & Stripes book stall in Viet-Nam I bought a Modern Library edition of The Brothers Karamazov which I stowed away with my gear and on which I read a little; I was much more into Tolkien. In the event, more than a year later (I was in-country 18 months) I opened that book aboard a Pan American 707, but was so grateful to be alive and so physically sick that I never read more than a page or so.  I didn’t finish the book until years later, but have re-read it several times since.  

Somehow I have lost it, and although my wonderful daughter gave me a replacement (in larger print), I so miss that companion of the long-ago.