444 months ago,
Give or take a few,
And 444 miles it seems,
Are time and distance
That define a tragedy
Of my youth,

For I was too much the gentleman
And the officer,
And you in your beauty
And naivete
Or so I thought

Too young to read
The signs carved in words,
Roads miles driven,
Time in dinghy upon the Dart,
To hear the words unsaid,
Torn from my very heart,

So 444 miles were complete,
444 months sailed past
As once past Sandquay we
Surpassed
The time we were allowed,
And DQ sanction held me fast

Lucy in the sky will sing no more,
To an audience made of one,
And ghosts of younger thee and me,
Still mourn what we might have won,
And older wiser heads and hearts,
Will wonder ever more,

What might,

Have been